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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
3:00 Think Again, Faith Again
11:55 Lingering effects of polygamy
24:25 The problem of pain
30:25 Michelle’s on pain and God’s plan
37:15 Thoughts on innocent suffering
40:45 A less-than-ideal wedding day
47:00 Thoughts on our eternal family
55:45 Loving God by loving others
1:06:30 The fallibility of man
1:14:50 Church history & the modern church
1:59:50 Respecting children’s choices
2:33:35 Placing God above all others
2:50:25 Appreciating those around us
3:05:35 “Santiago,” by poet David Whyte
Transcript:
[00:00] Michelle: Welcome to 132 problems revisiting Mormon polygamy where we explore the scriptural theological and historical case for plural marriage. I am excited that you’re here today for this conversation with my friend Jay Griffith. Um Jay and I have known each other for a little while and I think that this is a really good opportunity to hear a different perspective on the church and the gospel. I know that his ideas might not be the same as they’re not the same as all of my ideas. We have a lot of overlap and in some areas where we disagree with each other or see things a little bit differently. And I’m assuming that might also be the case with some of you. But I think it’s valuable to be in relationship with people that we don’t see eye to eye with because that’s how we learn and how we keep being stretched and being taught more. And I know that um being in association with people who see things a little bit differently than me always has blessed my life. Um I think it’s also so valuable to hear stories of how polygamy affects individuals and Jay is a man who has been affected by polygamy in some very interesting ways. So as always, I want to thank those who donate to this podcast and invite anybody else to please consider ongoing donations. If you’re able to do that, it is extremely helpful. And also please consider um sharing any of these episodes you feel strongly about. And if you haven’t already subscribed to this podcast, please do that with all of that being said. Thank you so much for joining us as we take this deep dive into the murky waters of Mormon polygamy and the ongoing experiences of the church. Welcome to this episode of 100 32 problems. I am so happy to be here with a man that I greatly respect and admire my friend Jay Griffith. He is a good guy. So I think I met Jay probably seven years ago. Is that right? And he’s just one of those people who your life is better if you have the privilege of knowing him. I’m sorry. I’m probably massively embarrassing you. But what I know of Jay is that his life just seems to be dedicated to making the world a better place. He just has a goodness and a stillness and a love and a expansiveness about him that I find has blessed my life in the, in the amount of small amount of interaction we’ve been able to have. So, Jay, thank you so much for coming on. And talking to me.
[02:29] Jay Griffith: Thank you, Michelle. It’s an honor to be with you.
[02:32] Michelle: I really appreciate it. So, a little bit about Jay, I know that. So you are on the Faith Matters Foundation. Were you a founding partner in that? I know that you’ve been very involved.
[02:43] Jay Griffith: Um I’m on the advisory board. They have an advisory board and they have a leadership team um that’s separate from the advisory board that’s built from Bill Turnbull and Susan, his wife and his brother and his wife and then a few others. So I’ve been doing something called Think Again, Faith again for over 10 years now. Yeah. And so that’s a group that I um kind of, I, I inherited think again as it was just a secular group, um was asked to kind of run it and a group of people had come together and just talk about whatever was on our minds, you know, and again, it was mainly a secular topics. It was inherited from a friend of mine who started it back east at Harbor. I can’t remember when she was working on her phd and, and so it was kind of more of an intellectual thing and, you know, I mean, I don’t even have a college degree. So I felt I, I got invited to it through a church calling that I had um
[03:44] Michelle: to, so, so let’s, let’s, I want to come back to, but let’s tell people what, think again, and faith again is I have it right here. Ready to go. This is actually so, so Jay, I didn’t do a good job on your introduction. I apologize. But I know Jay, I met him, I met him through his work and sort of facilitating conversations and trying to create peace and unity. And then after that, I found out about think again and faith again. And these are meetings you have, you host every month where you have fantastic speakers come um navigating these questions of faith and sort of knowing. Right.
[04:21] Jay Griffith: Correct. It’s a space that so think again was already, I inherited it as my kids had all left the church and um I had friends coming to me that had left or were struggling. And, and so I, I wanted to, I wanted to explore Mormon history and faith crisis and, and, and again, I’m not a scholar. I, I do read very widely and try to um voice, trying to pursue truth. And so I um suggested that we talk about again, Mormon history and faith crisis and, and normally would have, you know, 15 to 20 people come to a think again, group and um at the most and, and then with this topic, we had over 80 people to show up just packed. I had a, I had a recent friend of mine that, that um I had the opportunity to do a podcast with called um what was it called? A thoughtful faith. And, um, anyway, so this, this person in Movement Award, his name is James mcconkie and he’s the Russo mcconkie and he’s just a lovely individual. And I had originally tried to get Richard Turley who was at the time leading the church’s history department and because I have a mutual friend that works for him and I thought I could have the in, but he was working on the essays at the time, the gospel essays, all those hard things that, that hadn’t come out yet. They hadn’t even been announced, they hadn’t been online, but my friend um was assisting him in getting the novels written and compiled and, and so I thought he’d be perfect to talk about this, but the church wanted him to just stay focused on the essay. So he wasn’t allowed to do firesides and stuff. And so, um Jim um is the next person I thought of and he did just this lovely, lovely job of holding a space. I mean, I had my, you know, ex Mormon kids there. Um I had people from Sunstone that were showing up um for, for me at that time in my faith journey, people that felt, you know, pretty edgy and um and some that had left and, and he fielded all these challenging questions and, and he did it in such a loving and empathetic and compassionate way. And uh here I am 10 years later, you know, still doing it and it’s been, it’s been a nice place. I’ve seen people come through. Um, some people have stayed in the church. Some people have left. I honor both those, you know, journeys. It, it’s just a place to kind of hold people in their faith journey. I, you know, personally I hope they would stay, but at least with the caveat, if that’s what God wants them to do and, and I’m not convinced God wants every last one of us in the church of Jesus Christ. Latter days. I mean, that belief doesn’t seem rational to me considering the long history of, of humankind. Um most have not even heard of Christ, let alone our Christian version. So that was going on and then the founders of, of Faith Matters. Uh Bill and Susan Turnbull uh used to come to that on occasion and then he started asking me out for lunch and started sharing this vision that he had of what he felt called to do. Anyway. It’s, it’s, you know, this last conference they had, they’ve only had two conferences and this, this one, this last year called restore uh was twice as big as the one before. So I had 3000 people um come and just are the best LDS scholars that we have and thinkers plus people outside of our faith um speak and, and it’s just such an enriching experience. It’s not a sandstone, you have smart people, but they’re not trying to talk so much on an intellectual level, talking to, to the heart and it’s not a BYU education week. It’s, it’s, it’s got some flavor of that too. It’s somewhere in between where, where, you know, we’re just exploring the expansiveness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That, that Joseph Smith I think, was hoping that we would keep doing when he restored the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not that we get, we get stuck in it, you know, after he was murdered, but that we would just keep that work going, right. Keep the restoration going, keep exploring um and things. So, um again, I’m, I was put on that advisory board early on.
[08:57] Michelle: So you’ve been, you were doing that and kind of found the need for this. I would call it a ministering space almost. We are exploring ideas. But also I think you are so good at creating space for people to come and be with people who don’t necessarily agree but see one another’s humanity and experience unity and love and, and belonging, even if we’re not all exactly the same, which is, I think exactly what the gospel is that. That’s the only way to z in, in my opinion.
[09:26] Jay Griffith: Right. Yes. Well said.
[09:29] Michelle: And so, um so let me ask you, Jay, you do also have um online links where people can tune in to your meetings that like, yeah,
[09:37] Jay Griffith: ever since COVID, when COVID began then, yeah, we didn’t meet in person for some time. And then, and then we did, it started with an outside one. And um so then after that, then they’re always zoomed. And just again, you know, I had no intention of creating that space. There are so many things that happened that uh that, that just feel like, you know, God just put this in my lap and gave me an opportunity. It’s not like I have, oh I’m gonna create this group. I mean, all these things and it came again through AAA church calling just these connections and um I don’t know. And then I, I ju and I have felt since then called to keep it going. I, you know, I don’t charge anybody. It’s just, it’s my investment partly in my own continuing education. And um and, and, and then again, hopefully it blesses other people. It, it, it seems to have, I, I do get feedback that it has been helpful. Um You know, there’s some people that would find some of the topics difficult and, and challenging, but I, I mean, it seems like that what’s why God put us on earth, right to, to be challenged.
[10:54] Michelle: IA I, yeah, I, I’m, I’m, I’m all about let’s challenge ourselves, at least, I mean, only in the ways you feel inspired to. But one thing I say, often my listeners will be annoyed. I’m saying it again. But really, I just think the second you start to feel defensive that is not from the Lord that is giving you a hint that maybe you need to dive into that or at least dive into yourself and recognize because those, those feelings of defensiveness and protectiveness and I don’t want to fight against that idea are not from God. Right. It’s like, let’s hear people and let’s express our views. We don’t all have to agree, but we don’t need to fight against one another. I think Jay Jay and I have a very similar perspective on the church, I would say, and if I’m speaking for you incorrectly, but, but I like, let’s bring people in, let’s bring people together and hear from people and hear experience where I really struggle with sort of the other attitude of let’s kick them out. They’re not allowed to say that we need, you know, we need to have these boundaries be very clear and they’re not allowed in our space. And so, so I really appreciate that. And so Jay and I had a conversation, I didn’t know that Jay actually not only has dealt with the tradition of polygamy in his own life, but his story was actually included in Caroline Pearson’s book, The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy. And I didn’t know that. So I asked him to come on and give his, his story, which is from a unique perspective, but one that speaks so much to this problem, we have of continuing to believe this. So Jay can do you want to just kind of tell us your story from however far back you choose.
[12:33] Jay Griffith: Ok. Um I, I grew up in a little logging fishing town on the California on the Oregon border and I left for my mission from there. And while I was on my mission, my parents moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. And so I started attending the Singles Ward. And, um, there was a gal leading the music that I thought was really cute. Now, on my mission, I decided I wanted to attend college and I also decided that I wanted to finish college before getting married. So that was my mindset not going to get married until after
[13:07] Michelle: mine too. Just so, you know, mine too. And I didn’t do it either.
[13:10] Jay Griffith: Ok, so that was the plan and I hadn’t had any college. Um I had worked all even before high school and I didn’t, I didn’t mind working. I learned a lot of good valuable lessons, um, working like that. But anyway, the point is we didn’t have a lot of money. So that’s why I worked to save money from my mission. One of my mission came home to Salt Lake City. So this gal, I was serving as executive executive secretary to the Bishop of that Singles War. Said, who is this? Gave me just a brief background, said she’s wonderful. Um I dated like two or three other girls. So I’d, I’d been home three months when I first, um, asked Jane out on a date, uh, first couple of times she refused and she has good reasons to refuse. Not just because I was almost five years younger, but there’s, if she could tell you there’s other reasons she was in a very serious relationship at the time. Um, and then, and then she one day at one of those linger longer. Um, after church came up to me and said, hey, when are we gonna, when are we gonna go out? I just remember, you know, being on cloud nine that day, I thought, wow, I actually get to go out with this girl, you know, and, um, so on our second date, I accidentally discovered, um, that she had and this, this was to her great fear and concern that she had been married before. And, um, so we had a long conversation on that second date. And
[14:41] Michelle: can you fill me in on what it means that you accidentally discovered it?
[14:46] Jay Griffith: Well, I was looking through her back in the day, vinyl albums, her record albums and she had a name there and it wasn’t the name I knew her by in the ward. Um And so, and, but I didn’t, it didn’t occur to me that she’d been married before. I just said, that’s really weird. What, what’s about this name thing? And, and, you know, then it got really quiet and then she said, come over here and we sat down on the couch and, um, she told me, you know, her story. So she had, um, graduated from college up in Idaho, um University of Idaho in Moscow. And I met this man and married him. They got married in NHO Falls Falls Temple and they knew he had had, uh, I mean, obviously they knew he’d had cancer. Ok. And he was given somewhat of a clean bill of health, at least, uh, good chances of overcoming from the treatment he had gotten and he had had a blessing. I think this might have happened right after they got married or before. Now, I can’t remember interestingly by Paul H Dunn, who I actually still appreciate his inspiring stories. Um despite the controversy that he generated, I mean, his story, his story inspired me as a youth and, and I still appreciate that, but he’d given him a blessing that he would be healed. And so they went into this marriage with great optimism. Um But 10 minutes later he was dead and most of that, yeah, he was sick, he was sick and most of that time was spent in the hospital. They had to move um the university. Uh he went to the University of Utah to be treated. And so they moved here to Utah at Salt Lake City and she got this crummy little basement apartment in the avenues um to be close so that she could, you know, do that and you know, got a job and all that stuff anyway, really difficult time. And um
[16:46] Michelle: can I ask, can I ask a question? And, and I don’t want to ask you to speak on Jane’s behalf. But III, I have a dear friend who um similar situation. Her husband had cancer given a blessing of healing and was told that he would be healed. And a few months later, he passed away. That is a hard, that is a hard faith journey for a widow who had been given promises. Do you know how that affected Jane and her faith development like that had to have been incredibly difficult because you not only lost your husband, you question God and do you lose God as well?
[17:23] Jay Griffith: Yeah. You know, it was hard. Um, it didn’t seem to shake her faith at that time. Um She, she had the experience and she kind of sees this differently now and, and she has about three or four years ago, she resigned from our church. But, um, she, she had the experience sitting next to him as he passed away that he had been healed. So at the same time, we talked about this not too long ago. Um She kind of sees that more cynically now that that’s, um at the time it was comforting for her. I’m not so sure. It feels so comforting for her now.
[18:07] Michelle: Ok. Oh, that’s hard. Yeah. Ok.
[18:10] Jay Griffith: Yeah. So it’s kind of interesting, you know, so when I start when I found that out, um, about her. And then she said, so this is, you know, about three years later after she’s been a widow, about three years and struggling because people that she would date, the guys would find out that she’d been sealed and, and, and then, I mean, they could get, you know, at one point she was engaged and, and then it just could not get past that, that they wouldn’t be able to be sealed to her. And so I could tell that was really a struggle for her and
[18:46] Michelle: she was afraid to even have a boyfriend find this out because it’s the describe that was so
[18:52] Jay Griffith: she was so bummed that I found it out so early on.
[18:56] Michelle: And I, I think that’s something that I’ve done an episode on it, but it didn’t go quite as I expected. But what we do, like when, when Jesus explicitly tells us to care for the widows and we instead turn them into pariahs, it’s young widows in particular widows who would like to find a partner, a spouse and they’re the untouchable. No one will date with them because of this terrible, terrible false tradition we have. It is heartbreaking and tragic. So that was the situation that Jane was in. Ok. I just wanted to pause on that because it’s terrible. And then you, it’s terrible for you too. So, yeah, continue, I’m sorry to interrupt. But
[19:35] Jay Griffith: no, no, that’s fine. So, you know, her background was, she was really the only, um, I mean, her brothers had gone to scouts but they weren’t invested in it. Her dad was not a member of our faith. Her mom didn’t really attend, she had an active grandmother. Um, so she was really the only person growing up to go to church. Uh and she went to seminary um and institute when she went up to, you know, the University of Idaho there. You know, she, she stayed faithful through all this. She was active in the ward and serving um you know, all those things. So, so her faith was intact and, and, and that was important to me, you know, that she was, she believed. Um but I just told her, I said so I don’t want to do that to you. I don’t want to be one more guy that you date and goes, I I can’t deal with this. So, you know, fortunately the timing was good. She was just gonna head up to Idaho to see her parents um for a number of days and, and, and she had a cat and, and so I offered to take care of the cat and, you know, I don’t know if this would happen again nowadays with all the crazy stuff that the worries that you would have with single guys and stuff. Um but she, I mean, on our second date, she after just two dates, she trusted me with a key to her apartment. And so she went off and I started my research in prayer and fasting.
[21:06] Michelle: So you wanted your answer before you proceeded, you wanted to. Because
[21:09] Jay Griffith: I, you know, I, I didn’t want to be one of those people that did that and, and I mean, it was all new to me. You know, I have no idea. My, so I, my parents were converts to the church. Um My mom at 19, my dad in his thirties and he did this 10 year long what he called his Search For Truth. He wrote a, wrote a little treatise on it, you know, and he sport all world religions. He grew up Catholic, getting beat up, you know, in Catholic school and stuff. Um And he was very thoughtful. Um and he had a very uh profound conversion experience um with the book of Mormon. Um when they came, you know, when, when he found the missionaries and stuff. So anyway, that’s a little bit of background. My mom, they adopted me uh as a baby. Um I was an only child. So when I went and talked to my parents about this, um my, you know, my dad was particularly concerned. Uh I’m, I’m the only namesake, you know, and I’m the only one to carry on both in this life and the next, you know, his name in an internal family sense. So he was, he wasn’t real thrilled. I mean, he’s he’s such a good guy. Um, you know, they, they came on board eventually but it was not their first choice. It was
[22:30] Michelle: concerning. So it wasn’t, it was, again, the implications of this for you. You’re carrying the weight of your, of your devoted parents who wanted you so much. They adopted you and raised you. You know, and then, and then you’re not like a, so you had to go learn this theology. It sounds like and understand that your Children wouldn’t be yours. So that wouldn’t be theirs. So you would all be left alone, sort of out of the covenant like it. Like it, it was not about this earth. It was this horrible idea of polygamy and your parents felt like our line will end. We’ll have no eternal connection. OJ. And you had to wear the half the weight of that on you. Oh, my gosh. Ok. I just, it is heartbreaking. It is so heartbreaking that how the effects of this. Ok.
[23:22] Jay Griffith: It wasn’t. Yeah. You know, I’m 21 year old, pretty naive kid. I mean, it’s more heartbreaking for Jane, you know, I mean, it’s much harder for her. It was challenging for me, um, to a point. But, um, so I did, you know, I read everything I could, you know, things in doctrine of salvation by Joseph F Smith. And I couldn’t find anyway, I, I couldn’t find anything that gave me much hope. I, I did find things that said, you know, you’re gonna just gonna be an angel if you’re not sealed in the temple. You know, I found those kind of things. I didn’t find anything that gave me any hope that there would be anything greater for me. But fortunately on my mission, I had had my, you know, several faith crisis already. So, so that, that gave me an idea of what I believe the character of God was. And, and, and so, so that first experience was in the first month of my mission in Michigan, Ann Arbor and my companion, my trainer took, I guess we were asked to give a blessing to um a young girl at the hospital who had cancer. So again, I grew up in this little, I mean, I graduated with like 93 people. There’s a little community and, and I was one of the few LDS people. I, you know, there was a very small amount of LDS people there. Um And I had to had experiences in my life that indicated to me that the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Saints as was my home is where God wanted me. And, and I, I believed in it deeply and, and fully. And um anyway, so we go to the, the University of Michigan Hospital and walk into this room and yes, I’m 60 I’m not about, you know, I’m 63 right now. It is a long time ago. Still, it’s hard and there’s this 11 year old, um, wraith of a girl, um, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth on her bed. Bald, looks like a skeleton and she’s weeping. And, uh, so, you know, we give her a blessing. Um, I don’t remember anything about that. I, I left, we, we left and I, I just, what, what kind of a God does that lets that happen? You know, I mean, this is often the philos huge philosophical problem that so many great thinkers, you know, Christian atheists otherwise have tried to grapple with of all religions, really, this, this inexplicable suffering of the innocent people. And so, you know, I had to kind of struggle with. So number one, is there a God? Um and if there is a God, what is that God, like it’s some kind of sad that, you know, thinks this is interesting to see people suffer like this. Is it like a video? I mean, I didn’t know about video games back then, but is it some kind of game, you know, that, that God plays or did God wind up the clock and walk away and, you know, hope for the best or is there a God that as I grew up believing that still has some kind of investment in us and communication with us, but I just don’t understand why this stuff happens and, and, and that there might be, it might just be the way it is. So you know, after some amount of time, I can’t remember days, weeks, I just felt in my prayers and thinking that that last option that somehow my experiences with the divine and God spoke to me powerfully enough that, that I don’t have a good answer for what I saw and experienced. Um I really still don’t, but that I still believe God somehow works with us in some remote way. And, and, and, and II, I say that with now the, the hindsight of, you know, my middle son will tell me who did go on a mission, good faithful mission and who’s very hardcore atheist. Because so you’re telling me and, and this is not what I’m telling him, but this is, this is the problem of a God intervening. And I just had this conversation with one of my atheist friends. There’s never been LDS. Um This is, this is what can be so difficult. So you’re saying someone can pray to find their lost keys and God will tell them to find their lost keys. And then the little girl who is being abused daily, it is desperately praying for relief. God doesn’t hear that prayer. God chooses not to answer that prayer but answer the prayer of the keys. And that’s a big problem. I mean, I can surely understand, I mean, I think any rational person could understand how, how does that work and, and, and I don’t know, I, I think God is probably I, I don’t see God as an individual like you and I are individuals personally doing all these kind of things, you know, I, I mean, I think that’s where in our faith and we believe, you know, in spirits and other people part of the work, just like other people do God’s work here, other people do God’s work there. There’s this consciousness that of, of universal, I mean, my atheist friend talks about quantum mechanics and that strange was the term um where, where an uh an atom here can affect an atom, you know, past the speed of light in another place. I’m, I’m blocking on the word of that. Um Anyway, there’s, there’s just all kinds of things, we just don’t understand and I don’t understand that I don’t understand how that works. But I do trust I in the character of God being, you know, real and, and, and believing in God, I mean, I still have my bouts of atheism but I have chosen to believe um because I’ve found enough evidence for belief and yet I can sure appreciate my atheist kids and friends choosing they just don’t see enough evidence for that. But for me there is, but this is really for the story
[30:30] Michelle: and you know what, we’re just gonna kind of blend topics all together if you don’t mind because I, I don’t know if I want to hear your story. Would you mind if I speak to my experience? Through those questions and those experiences. Um So the question of pain, the problem of pain is kind of what you’re speaking to, it sounds like to me and the capriciousness of God. And um so the question and I’m gonna try and make this concise because it’s hard to get to these ideas, right? But the question of how could God let this happen, how can I make this most concise? I really think that pain is relative, right? And whatever this this was, I’m I’m gonna give first the kind of intellectual answer I had and then my experience through some of these questions, but where, where is the pain degree allowed to be set that we would be satisfied? Because if there were, if, if we were like, there’s just too much pain in this world for there to be a God. Well, then we could say God should have set the pain lower, right? The degree lower. So pain can only get this bad, but pain is relative. And so if there were, if pain were set lower than it is, you know what I’m trying to communicate, then all of a sudden if I had a hangnail, I could say, how could God let this happen? There can’t be a God, right? And so this idea of pain not being allowed in a unit, in a divine, in a universe created by a divine, loving intelligence breaks down into like like and now I’ll speak a little more to my personal experience as um a mother of a child born in pain, only to suffer until her death. Right. And, and a child that God told me to have and gave me the impression that I would get to raise after another child that God told me to have and gave with the promise that I would be able to raise to in a row in the same experience. Right? And, and um so sitting and then also, you know, as a mom of a large family, some have had really serious health problems, we’ve had a lot of scares with kids. We wouldn’t get to keep, it’s just part of the parenting road, right? But what I kind of realized because at the same time, I am in these atheist discussions and I think there is a lot of good thought, but the feeling of the purpose of pain in this world for me is a calling, a calling and an opportunity for us to invest ourselves in. What can I do? I can’t affect most pain, but I can connect the like people mock atheists tend to mock when we say my prayers are with you. But you know what that is, something I can do that calls on my compassion and my faith and connects me to that person and we don’t know through quantum mechanics what the effect might be. But it is me doing something to out of empathy, right. And so, and, and there are a lot of times that I can help and my feeling was for someone to um say, how could God let an innocent child suffer and die when I am holding my innocent child who is suffering and dying? Is them doing the exact opposite using my pa they’re not talking about me, but I, I was experiencing that. So I, you know, put it personalized that they’re using my pain and my experience to justify their lack of belief rather than investing themselves in it. Like it’s a, it’s kind of looks to me and I don’t want to insult anyone that, you know, that that is on that side as sort of a false empathy. I can use their pain to justify my belief that there is no God and, and, and the fact is they’re not sitting with me in that experience experiencing how I and my child are experiencing God or even if that’s a black moment, if God and God isn’t there in that moment, weeks or months later on how God does show up, right? And so to me, it is, it’s inverting the whole question and to say I can use pain to deny belief rather than I can see that pain is part of the necessary recipe for growth. And I can take it as an invitation from God to become the best person I can do and alleviate as much pain as I possibly can. Right? And, and in that way, my, my understanding of the atonement where, you know, Isaiah tells us surely he hath borne our sorrows carried our grief. I I’m not getting the words right. But any pain that I alleviate is directly taking it from the savior’s back as well. So in our own way, we can all get it like if we believe in a God who allows pain, but we also believe in a God who took all of that pain upon himself. So he doesn’t ask us to do something that He, that God doesn’t do, right. And in our small way, as each of us get in and lift, lift that burden, we all get to help in the atonement. And so I think the purpose of pain in this world is actually profound and we can, we can look at it. And when you’re saying, when, when you see someone’s pain and you’re saying clearly, there’s no God, you’re not actually helping that person. And maybe belief would be something that would help minimize their pain or give them purpose. I know that my experiences with God have healed me profoundly in the things I’ve experienced. And so when I talk to people who want to use my experience that they maybe haven’t even gone through to claim there’s no God, I feel like step back, you, you, you know, not what you speak, you know. And frankly, if, if God, I have had times where God has helped me find things. Yes. And I have helped Children that God has not healed. Yes. Right. However, if like it all starts with submission, it’s all about what is in God’s work, what is in God’s plan? What does God know is in the highest, good for each of us and what contributes to that? Right. So for me, it’s just be thankful for all of it. Be thankful for the time that God answers our prayer in the way we think we want answered and be thankful for the times that God stretches us beyond what we think we know because our prayers are answered in ways. Like for me, faith has been turned in his head where faith is not. If I believe enough, I’ll get what I want. Faith is trusting to know that everything God does is good. Faith isn’t insisting on the miracle. I want faith is loving, seeing and loving the miracle I’ve given. And so I know that that doesn’t solve the problem. I just wanted to speak to how those exact questions have, have showed up in my life. And um because when you know God, you know, it’s just a different perspective. I, I mean, I, I, and again, I don’t want to, I understand people’s lack of faith. I do understand it. I just think it hasn’t gone far enough yet from my perspective. So thanks for letting me
[37:15] Jay Griffith: sure. Yeah, I mean, again, it’s, it’s it’s an issue for CS Lewis who wrote a whole book on it. The problem of pain, you know, it’s for him, particularly um the suffering of innocent people for you. And I, we can, you know, we can process the difficult pain that we experience and, and learn and grow from it and do good with it, right? We can often turn to good. That’s Victor Frankl’s man’s search for meaning. I mean, one of the most horrific experiences that a human can go through. He did and he came intact with uh a belief out of it. Um At the same time, he um CS Lewis struggled with this idea. Well, a baby, um a young child animals, there’s nothing they can process through their spirit or mind to benefit themselves out of that, right? Um And, and, and so there’s a sense of injustice, I think that’s very tied up um in the arguments of, of what I brought up in terms of, you know, this person suffering, this person not suffer. And, and, and so for me, faith and belief, you know, we all kind of have to like, you have come to some kind of resolution in our mind that works for us at least at the moment and maybe we get better and better at different ways of extrapolating how that works. But it, it ends up coming down to some kind of faith, a choice that we are. And so that’s in my mission. That’s kind of, you know, I had these options of, of figuring out and, and, um for whatever reasons I ended up with the choice to continue to believe in some kind of loving God that I, I don’t understand what’s going on here and it seems so heartbreaking and unfair. Um And, and probably, I know it, it’s still heartbreaking and unfair and maybe that’s where Jesus steps in, you know. Um
[39:24] Michelle: I, I do want to add one more thing, I’m sorry, just one more little thing with the suffering of innocence. Though we looking from the outside don’t know the experience of how that child is being ministered to by God and by angels either in that moment or later on. And, and my experience has been that that is happening and also the call again the like the Godly part of us picks up a child and that is suffering in whatever capacity we can, right? And that is II I just, I, anyway, I just want to propose that that is I believe God showing up saying, hey, help, help, help, help, right? And so that nature we have to want to alleviate suffering, I think is something to tap into. And even if people want to call that God, that can be God. God is what alleviate suffering within us, you know. So anyway, I just wanted to get
[40:17] Jay Griffith: it. I think that’s part of it too. I think at the end of the day we, we don’t have any, you know, clear answers, but all those I think are helpful, you know, in, in, in our belief in, in, in, in relieving suffering. I mean, we are my, my prayer every day is very simple. Help me be your hands and heart. I mean, you know, um I think that’s, that’s what you’re talking about there. So, you know, that experience and in trying to figure out well, if I felt inspired to marry Jane, um felt like, and, and again, I could make, I could make the wrong assumption, right? I could think that God wanted me to marry Jane and, and actually God didn’t want me to. But I went on the assumption that if, if I get in the right direction from God, because I was praying about, I would pray about is this a person I should marry? And, and felt like God sanctioned that and however that came to me, then, how could God withhold blessings from me and punish me for doing what I felt. God directed me to do so for me, that’s what it came down to. And, and so when she came home, we started dating again and she had a huge sigh of relief, you know.
[41:38] Michelle: Oh, that poor girl, I just, my heart breaks. Ok?
[41:41] Jay Griffith: I actually made a big poster and sign and put it in the elevator because she, you know, there’s a parking terrace at the bottom and then she had to go up the elevator to get to her apartment. And so I had in the elevator, this big sign, welcome home and stuff like that. Just kind of. So she would know, you know that um
[41:58] Michelle: oh, that’s so
[41:59] Jay Griffith: keep going. So anyway, um yeah, three months later we were married. So
[42:05] Michelle: that’s a great story. Ok.
[42:07] Jay Griffith: I hadn’t dated much. I didn’t date a whole lot in high school. We did get married in the Jordan River Temple because in my head, that’s what I’ve been raised with. You gotta get married in the temple and at that point in time, you could get married for time. Um The Soli Temple was closed for renovation or cleaning or who knows what the Jordan River Temple. Uh that, that wedding was just a disaster. It was, it was, it, it, it was noisier in there than any of the noisiest sacra means that ever been. It was chaos. Um They lost my best man and my father for almost an hour because they’d shuttled him off to some room. And then they actually said, go on without them. And I said, well, fine where you put them?
[42:55] Michelle: Oh my gosh. Oh my word. Ok.
[42:59] Jay Griffith: So anyway, in the world and then this, you know, and to be fair, those poor temple workers are doing the best they can. It was, I mean, they just had way too many people to deal with, you know, because of the temple being closed and, and then this little old man that was assigned to marry us didn’t know our story and he seemed so irritated and so put out to marry us for time only. I mean, it, it just, and, and then my poor, my poor wife Jane. So she for, you know, we’re gonna get pictures, take, have the photographer take pictures on the outside of the temple. And so she’s in, she’s in the temple and doesn’t know anywhere else to do it. She’s in front of a mirror to put on her street veil and not her temple veil makes sense because, you know, but this, this temple worker, you know, yells at her for doing that when she comes out jumps all over her anyway. It, it just, it wasn’t a great experience, you know, to get married there. I mean, with hindsight, we would have gotten married somewhere else. Um,
[44:05] Michelle: you were doing the right thing. You were getting worse
[44:08] Jay Griffith: even though this is even worse. Michelle the second marriage, her second marriage where her family couldn’t be with her. Oh, yeah. You know, and you know, most any other country you would get married civilly and then get married. It get sealed in the temple at some point.
[44:28] Michelle: I am so thankful that that has been at least fixed that there’s not the penalty, the year penalty before you, you know, so you can like, I, I mean, if I have any it’s like, well, doctrine and covenants 101, the original Doctrine and covenants 101, which is against polygamy also very clearly says that it should be a community event where everybody is there. And yeah, I hope that the rest of my Children choose to get married where all of their siblings can be there. All of their, you know, it’s like, because it’s
[44:58] Jay Griffith: its own thing and both of them much better. Both of those is much better. I mean, I feel so bad for, you know, back in the day as I was growing up was very common for the first experience of a young woman going to the temple was her wedding day. I mean, talk about stress upon stress and crazy
[45:17] Michelle: was the day before the day before
[45:21] Jay Griffith: goodness gracious, you know,
[45:24] Michelle: not the day of. But yeah,
[45:26] Jay Griffith: I, you know, the first time I went to the temple, I was, I think 18 because I was a state missionary in my area, went down to the Oakland Temple and, you know, I mean, they weren’t prepared well, back then. Nothing like nowadays. And I’m just going, what the heck is this much different? It took me years to figure out ways to and I did actually did get comfortable with the penalties and stuff and, and with all that, I, you know, I, I took a year and went every week with a friend who was a bail worker and that was amazing, you know, the Salt Lake Temple live sessions. Um, I had all kinds of interesting things come to me and, and appreciations took me a long time to ever do initiatory. I mean, it was years before I did initiator again because that just kind of freaked me out. But all those things are, you know, easier and better now, thankfully. Um, but anyway, that’s a little digression there. But, but so that, yeah, it was not a great, you know, it was not a great experience and, and for things are getting better, but the church still does not make it very obvious or clear or even encourage, which I think they should be encouraging people to get civilly married. Everybody can come, like you said, and then, you know, and then get married in the temple and have that be its own thing and they can both be much more enriching that way.
[46:48] Michelle: I agree and unifying that for, for people to see the church as something that made them miss their loved one’s wedding is just not the position we want to be in. That’s, it does not make us beloved. Yeah, it’s terrible. Another, another young widow I know who got remarried, a widower. And then when their youngest Children, their, you know, hers, mine and ours, when their, our Children learned that they weren’t sealed to their dad. Like a little primary kid came home from his lesson talking about, I’m so bad. We’re a forever family and the older kids, you’re not sealed to dad, you’re your dad is, you know, someone you’ve never met and the devastation that, that created, I just kind of want to know about like when you’re holding your child and this looming idea of uncertainty or even if you believe the teaching, certainty that this child is not yours eternally. Right? And is, and then the Children learning up growing up learning that they’re not sealed to you. I kind of want to know how that, how you guys navigated that and how that affected your family.
[47:50] Jay Griffith: That’s a good question. So, um again, with my, my framework of the virtues of God and what the character of God, um not penalizing me for doing what I believe God inspired me to do Mary Jane. Um I don’t think I’m penalized with my kids. I, so the way, one of the ways that I came many, many, many years ago to resolve this whole issue is if these are all theoretic, I mean, everything is story, really everything is story in our lives, that’s how we operate or by stories. And so the story that our church, you gra latter day saints tells um is that somehow Adam and Eve were actually sealed? I mean, we don’t have any record of that, but that’s kind of the way we think. And, and so if the idea was that Adam and Eve and their Children would be sealed to them. And if everybody had played the game, right, everybody would be sealed to everybody and be one big marvelous, happy, eternally sealed giant family of humanity, right? I mean, that’s kind of the ideal. Um Obviously, it didn’t happen that way. Um But in my mind, it’s not about God trying to create little family fiefdoms in the next world doesn’t in, I don’t hear anything in what Jesus has said. Nothing that points me to that. I mean, everything points that from what Jesus taught and said that we, we have of rocks, you know, rough approximations of what people thought he said and heard is that we’re all God’s Children. God loves us all equally, all are likened to God and that God would love us all to live with our heavenly parents, right? And, and, and so I don’t, I’m not invested in my Children and being my Children per se. We’re all part of this larger human family and, and I, I’m, it doesn’t bother me that her first husband Bart is in this context of our church sealed my Children except my daughter because we adopted her and she’s not sealed anybody. But um that, that, that, that’s not a problem in my mind.
[50:12] Michelle: Did you have that same perspective back then when you were having your Children? And so, so it never, and, and, and did you just, so it wasn’t a problem for your Children either or like, did they ever have to come with.
[50:25] Jay Griffith: I don’t know if we’ve, um, it’s a good question. I don’t know how much they thought about it or if they just kind of took my point of view. I mean, it wasn’t, I don’t remember it with my Children for them. It being a big issue and again, none of them are part of the church anymore. So, you know, I mean, anyway, um, yeah, it’s just so, yeah, I mean, again, I had to, I had to think through these things very, very early on, you know, um to figure out how to move forward, you know, and, and still believe, which I did deeply um in the church and, and, and I, and I still do not in the same way that maybe, you know, your, your average LDS person would. But um, so yeah, it’s, I don’t know, but, you know, I think there were times maybe Michelle our daughter that we adopted at 3.5 maybe, I mean, she had a lot of attachment issues and I mean, adoption can be just hard, you know, it wasn’t hard for me. I, I was one of those fortunate few, you know, that, that um for whatever reason it was because my adoptive parents, you know, I mean, I never remember being told I was adopted, I just always knew. So they must have told me very young. Um and they always made me feel loved and I just, you know, I did find my adoptive family three years ago, which is a whole another amazing story. But, and, and partly thanks to the church, you know, I mean, there’s so many things I can say that almost every good thing has come into my life associated, somehow touched by the church of De Christ Latter Saints as part of it. Um It, my parents met at the church, I met my wife at church. My profession is because of a calling ahead church and someone I served with think again, faith, again, again, connection to church, my atheist friends, connection to, I mean, that’s just goes on and on and, you know, my expansive love and reading of people outside of the church of just amazing inspired, I would call prophets and prophetesses, um are all kind of rooted in, somehow touched because of my membership in the church. And I think Joe Smith had such that big vision that we have, you know, and this is what institutions do just by their nature, keep, you know, narrowing and dumbing down and instead of we, we
[53:06] Michelle: ossify
[53:06] Jay Griffith: into trying to simplify and, and, and make it very black and white and simple and, you know, it’s just, that’s not God’s plan to. So in that, in that way, I mean, on the other hand, I think it is as simple as the two great commandments. I mean, that’s what I stay very rooted in. And for me, you know, when people have expressed, you know, what about this? What about that? I say if I can just attend to those two commandments from moment to moment, I don’t have to worry about anything in the next life. I will be fine. I don’t have to worry about any complications or structures or who I’m sealed to who I’m not sealed to or if this church is true or that church, all I need to do is from moment to moment whoever’s in front of me attend to what Jesus taught and it’ll all work out. It’s, it’s that in my mind, it is that simple. I don’t care who you are if you’re an atheist or whatever and it won’t be in their head. It’s Jesus Christ, maybe it’s, you know, Muhammad or, or just consciousness or no God at all. But if people try their best to be decent human beings and treat others well, it’ll all be fine.
[54:29] Michelle: Ok? I love that. Two things came to mind while you were talking about that because I love that perspective. And it’s even in our hymn. Have I done any good in the world today? Right? Then rise up and do something more than dream of your mansions above doing good is a pleasure, right? Like, and um my daughter who just so brilliantly said, like, aren’t we not supposed to like it? Haven’t we learned that the joy is in the journey, not the end goal, aren’t we supposed to say, right? Like, don’t focus on where you want to go, focus on what you’re learning and what you’re doing and enjoying the path. Right? So, exac, I, I, like, I could not agree with you more again. Like my whole life is God. What do you want me to do today? And that’s, that’s, that’s all the answers I need is just, you know, my, my, my hand is just my prayer is just use me. I want to be an instrument in the hand of God. And that, that’s my prayer every day. How, how do you want to use me today? Right. And so, yeah, I love, I love that perspective. And I think that in a way, there’s a, there’s a humility there that avoids contention and that allows for a variety of beliefs and people that come together because we’re not telling people what it is. We’re just saying, I’m just doing my best to like guide my little ship in the way God is directing me and everyone else can do the same thing. And hopefully the world becomes a more peaceful, unified, better, more loving place. OK. Love it, Jay. You know,
[55:46] Jay Griffith: I should say I just a few days ago, listen to your podcast with your two daughters, which I thought for some reason, I thought it was the most recent it popped up. But I guess it was about a year ago or so, right? That you did that Yeah. And, and, um, II, I loved, I loved, you know, what, what you, um, kind of held that space with them for, you know, I, I think you and I probably might differ in, in what we hope the church would do or what God, we think God wants the church to do with LGBT Q people. I’m kind of on the far progressive, you know, and unless cons, you know, less orthodox in my belief in, in, in those things. But um but the important thing, I’m
[56:35] Michelle: probably more orthodox and that’s OK. I think
[56:38] Jay Griffith: that’s what I’m saying. It is. Um And it’s not that one of us are right or one of us are wrong but making that space of just loving them as they are. But, but what it points part of your discussion talked about and, and I’ve run into this, I remember publishing something um in the public square. Jacob has our mutual friend started that he got kicked off, you know, kind of. Um But, but Jacob’s another, he’s the guy that brought me into the kind of larger conversation space and dialogue space and just a beautiful soul, you know, he’s much more orthodox than I am. And, but we, we adore each other and we have interesting discussions and, and, and stuff. Um But there’s a guy that writes on there um that um after I um what was his name? There was a, oh Wilcox, Brad Wilcox, a couple of years ago, he was, he had been videoed in alpine doing this talk.
[57:35] Michelle: Unfortunate.
[57:37] Jay Griffith: Yeah. And so I had wrote, written the piece and then Jacob kind of for the Public Square, which is a pretty orthodox publication, online publication and expressing my concerns about things that he said and, you know, Jacob as editor kind of helped me massage a little bit. So it wouldn’t, you know, it would be received at least reasonably well. But there’s often this argument about uh about how we love. Um And there’s tough love and there’s love um of and I, I mean, I understand those arguments somewhat of, you know, because, because I, I kind of did the tough love with my kids in a sense. I it’s not accommodating everything I guess, you know, love is, doesn’t mean we accommodate every behavior, everything doesn’t, it doesn’t mean everything is right or good. Um And it, but at the same time when we talk about those two great commandments, it’s, it’s like we’ve, we’ve separated God, loving God and loving others. And for me, the only way we can love God is how we treat others. It’s not like I can love God on my own by doing these things on my own by going to the temple and or just um meditating or worshiping him. The only, the only way that’s how I read those commands. The only way we can love God is by how we love other people, that’s how that’s expressed. And so I think, um, when we, when we deal with people that are far outside our realm of comfort and, and, um, or even like Jesus said, our enemies, that is an opportunity of how we treat them. It doesn’t mean we need to agree with them. It doesn’t need mean we need to accept all their behavior or even not even stop some of their behavior. But we, I think we need to keep in mind we are engaged in that work at that moment of loving God and, and let’s remember that and that will affect how we treat them. If, if we envision,
[59:45] Michelle: I think I’ve spoken before about um stand as a witness of Christ is something that people use a lot. And every time I encounter Christ, it is with an outpouring of love and the opposite of accusation, it is with um you know, like a, an, an embrace. I see you and love you as you are. Yeah, there’s probably room for improve, but that’s not how Christ meets me, right? And so I always want to encourage people standing as a witness of Christ means in that way because people, I think misuse it to stand as a witness of Christ to preach and accuse and lay down barriers and right. And I think it’s the opposite and we did talk about this in our phone call. I remember because I, for me, I, I just remember the strongest clarity when I told my Children take love in one hand and truth in the other hand and go and those are your, you know, and, and I, and I think you push back because truth is hard to define who’s, you know, but I think love is just as hard to define. And I, I think that’s why we need the connection with God, right? Because I constantly rely on God. I guess it’s not, I have truth and I have love, it’s I want truth and I want love. My life is dedicated to receiving and being led in greater and greater truth and love rather than thinking I already have it and know what it means. It’s the quest for both of those things that I think that’s, that’s how I interpret love God and love your fellow man as the quest for pure truth and pure love, which really are the same thing when we, when understand correctly. I believe so.
[1:01:20] Jay Griffith: Yeah. And they’re not um they’re not static in my mind. These are a flowing, flowing thing.
[1:01:28] Michelle: And like I said, the quest for that,
[1:01:31] Jay Griffith: we need to hold our opinions somewhat. I mean, lightly, right? I mean, because that’s what they are. We think I know in my own life, I thought certain things were irrevocably true only to find out that wasn’t the case, you know,
[1:01:48] Michelle: and I don’t believe that anymore. Right? I started to say what, but what I believe God wants me to believe right now is this, you know, and this is, and sometimes like, like the core of what God has taught me has always stayed consistent. But my framework for understanding, it has changed as I have learned more. And so, yeah, I think I love that is to just hold it lightly, just, you know, the, the less dogmatic and the more humble and open we are while still believing what God teaches us. I think the better off we are.
[1:02:22] Jay Griffith: Well, we talk about, you know, God and, and broader Christianity is even more hardcore about this, but that God is um has arrived, is, knows, everything is perfect and everything is um hm I don’t know, is, is, is this uh and they talk about that, you know, some like the leaders of our church will say, you know, these truths are immutable and will never change. Well, our, our theology that Joda Smith revealed was a God that was constantly changing. I mean, we’re told that God, we were allowed once that God was once like us, that we were intelligences with God. Once that God, just like we saw what, what little vision we saw of Jesus Christ progressing learning from the things that Christ suffered that there is and that, and then we believe that that goes on that, that growth and learning. That’s part of what delights God. Um And, and, and so to think that I mean, if God goes through that process of continuing a accumulating knowledge and wisdom and, and, and loving relationships, that’s a God. I can buy in. I mean, I don’t, I don’t want to study God. In fact, I’ve, for, for years, I’ve not felt like I’ve needed a perfect God. I need a God that’s doing the best they can. And I, I know that that’s blasphemous for a lot of people. But at the same time I believed before Christ came to earth. I mean, from our theology that I believed in Christ, that’s why I’m here. I chose his plan, right? In the pre mortal life was God perfected at that point, maybe at, at some level. But if Christ himself said I learned from the things I suffered, I continued to grow. I, and this is what we keep hoping for. I mean, the, the scariest hell for me is a static next life of no more enriching relationships. No more learning and growth. I mean, that sounds terrible.
[1:04:37] Michelle: Right. Right. And for me, these are the theological, um, I, I, the theological weeds that I’m like, oh, that’s not my, that’s not where I live as much. But for me, I think there, I, I happen to think there is ultimate truth and ultimate love. I think that when we all know everything, we’ll all see eye to eye, we’ll all agree. And I think that’s what God is. So I do think that there is an uh an ultimate truth and an ultimate love that all of us lack and are hopefully striving towards. So I, I don’t, I personally don’t see
[1:05:11] Jay Griffith: much of that. I’m not saying that I’m saying, I’m saying that that this even God is on this always quest to get closer and closer to that. And obviously, that’s much, much beyond us, obviously. I mean, it’s obvious to me that God’s much beyond us in, in that, in that. But, um just, just like we’re finding, you know, with the telescopes that we finally have that Joseph Smith pointed us to before we ever had those telescopes that the universe in creation is so much bigger, so much bigger than we ever ever envisioned that, you know, and that there are other universe and worlds that number. I mean, those things scientifically were just not even thinkable back in Joe, the Smiths Day. Right. But now with what we’ve, what we’ve able to see at this point, we’re going, it’s just kind of mind blowing for astrologists, for scientists. We’re going, wow. Yeah, we, yeah, this might not be a one off earth, you know.
[1:06:24] Michelle: Right. Right. It is, it’s incomprehensible to us. I can, I can’t wrap my mind around it.
[1:06:29] Jay Griffith: Yeah. So, um but that, you know, I, I express that because I guess for me that is, is again part of the character of God um reflex how I guess I am approaching people too. Um because I don’t expect perfection out of people. Um, including the leaders of the church I belong to. Um, even though at times they’ve s, they’re part of an institution that keeps pushing them to this infallibility of revelation and stuff. Um It’s just never been that way and our scriptures are written, ancient scriptures are, are filled with that kind of idea that these guys make mistakes and when their prophets even speaking in the name of the Lord, they don’t always get it right. I mean, it just is the way things are and, and that’s ok. I mean, so I, I guess I’m trying to make that relationship. You know, when I say I don’t need a perfect God. Um but a God with a perfect intent of love and concern and care for all creation. Um And that, and that came with me, that’s because that helps me also take that idea and put it out in the world with all of God’s creation and people. And, and, and so, you know, when a prophet says this is the way it is, then I’m gonna have to go on my own journey and find out like I did with my wife and feelings and stuff and find out is that the journey that God is asking me to be on and is that framework that story that I’m being told? Is that what is what God wants me to believe? And it will bring the most Godlike characters out of me, or is that not gonna be what God wants me to be? And I don’t think we’re at least in this, this sphere of existence that we’re all gonna align perfectly. I mean, it hasn’t yet and it’s not even close. And so either if, if, if, if the intent was that we are all supposed to be on the same page while we’re in this life and get it all right in this life, then God’s, our heavenly parents are enormous failures. I mean, it’s not even working out like that, you know. Uh
[1:08:56] Michelle: Yeah, definitely. OK. That’s interesting
[1:09:00] Jay Griffith: back, you know, quickly to that up. So, um Caroline Pearson to write this book, she um put out online um a call for people
[1:09:12] Michelle: to Carolyn’s been on my, on my podcast. Did you know,
[1:09:17] Jay Griffith: she, she stayed at my house before I or this woman, you know, I’ve had her come to my think again, faith again. Um And she spoke last year at the Faith Matters restore conference um and stayed with me while she was doing that. We’ve, you know, ever since. So when she launched this book, um she put out on social media, um a call for stories, uh you know, more about contemporary polygamy and how it’s affecting you contemporary polygamy being. How did the past polygamy of the church affect you now? Kind of like I just described, but until that
[1:09:57] Michelle: the doctrine is contemporary, we still have it,
[1:10:00] Jay Griffith: but we don’t think of it that way as typical members of the church. I mean, so, like this problem of our ceiling Jane and I, I had not connected to polygamy at the time until Caroline Pearson. It hadn’t occurred to me that that was part of polygamy. The ceiling problem. I just thought it was just a procedure problem, uh, policy problem.
[1:10:23] Michelle: But the widow that I interviewed said the same thing. She’s like, oh, I never thought about this with polygamy, which to me is like, wow, like, like to me it grows directly out of polygamy. Ok.
[1:10:38] Jay Griffith: Now
[1:10:39] Michelle: you see it that way. Yeah.
[1:10:41] Jay Griffith: Yeah, I didn’t, then it was just like this kind of crazy policy because it, it never made. So if I were dead right now or if I’d been dead, you know, years ago, Jane could get sealed to me. So she’d be sealed to Bart and me. Um, and I mean, that just makes no sense to me.
[1:10:59] Michelle: Wouldn’t she need to be dead too? Wouldn’t it be that your grandchildren could be sealed for both of you?
[1:11:03] Jay Griffith: She could be alive and get sealed to me if I were dead?
[1:11:07] Michelle: Oh, ok. It’s changed a couple of times. I can’t keep
[1:11:11] Jay Griffith: up on all the time. And that’s, that’s the, that’s where it is now. Um,
[1:11:17] Michelle: ok. So if we’re doing eternal polyandry, I guess that, you know what I mean? Like, like, can we just change this and just let women be sealed to their husband.
[1:11:28] Jay Griffith: Well, I mean, that was, you know, that it’s just, and that is, you know, I’ve gone to temple presidents and there’s a couple of seventies I’ve spoken to over the years and stuff when we were counseled consistently over time as well. Jane can cancel that first ceiling and then you can get sealed. And I, both Jane and I are going, well, that doesn’t make any sense. He was a good guy. I mean,
[1:11:52] Michelle: especially if they’ve had Children like, like, I mean, not as, I mean,
[1:11:56] Jay Griffith: yeah,
[1:11:57] Michelle: but there are couples where, where they’re given the same counsel. It’s like, so just like what? Yeah, take these children’s father away from them.
[1:12:05] Jay Griffith: Yeah. So that never sat right with us. So we didn’t do that, you know. Um and again, I’m just going and, and, and you know, some of the responses, well, it’ll work out in the next life and of course it will work out in those. I know that in the world, why not make it work out in this life? Too complicated. Just let women be sealed to whatever many husbands they need to be sealed like you let men do, you know. Um So anyway, we just have these and some of this stuff. So many things I found over time as I, as I ride in science and stuff like that and other cultures and stuff. So, so many things are cultural you know, we, we inherit so much of this stuff and it’s hard to change, hard to change perceptions and beliefs because of what we’ve inherited for generations in the past. And I mean, patriarchy is one of those things. It’s just patriarch has been an overlay for as long and almost every culture, not every single culture, but most cultures for so long. It’s really hard to get out of that water and look at it and, you know, not breathe it um and not swim in it. Um So it’s, it’s just, it’s just interesting. So anyway, she both Jane and I independently without I think realizing it um wrote our stories and sent them in um
[1:13:30] Michelle: oh, you guys hadn’t talked about it.
[1:13:33] Jay Griffith: She chose my story because it was from a male’s perspective. Um And she didn’t have as many of those of that. So it’s on page 99 if you have the book and she actually accidentally uses Jane’s name, real name, Jane. Oh, she does. And I had no. So I, I was only alerted that we were in there by one of the people that attended my think again, faith again group. And they go, you know, I just read a story in Carolyn Pearson’s latest book and it sure sounds like your story. Well, I know. So it was, it was just kind of funny how it, how it all happened. But um anyway, so, you know, we’ve covered that. Well, enough that element of
[1:14:22] Michelle: thank you for sharing that. And we did kind of combine topics. So if there’s anything else you want to say on that. But I think, I think this is good to help us understand you really have been navigating faith early on from your first atheistic challenges as a missionary stepping right into ceiling challenges that I, yeah, that I understand polygamy wasn’t on, it wasn’t in the mindset back then, right? In the eighties, people weren’t talking about it at all.
[1:14:52] Jay Griffith: And so when did those, those manuals of the church leaders come out? I’m trying to remember
[1:14:59] Michelle: the teachings of the presidents of the church,
[1:15:01] Jay Griffith: the
[1:15:01] Michelle: church when I was first married. So yeah,
[1:15:05] Jay Griffith: so I mean, you could take just the two critical leaders and that will lead us into, you know, a little more of this discussion about uh uh about Brigham Young and Joe Smith. But Pmy is not mentioned in those at all and it was such a topic in the day for them, you know, you know, it’s a big, a big deal, particularly the one that stood out most for me was the manual, Brigham Young. I’m going, the whole world knows Brigham Young for polygamy and we don’t have a word, not one word even about polygamy in that manual. And I’m going, that’s craziness, that’s, that’s it.
[1:15:48] Michelle: We now, so now the term we are using is historical malpractice because I remember reading the um tiding section on in Brigham Young’s manual being like these are such weird kind of stupid quotes like, why, why is this, you know, it struck me at the time and it’s not until I went back and have, and, and really started investing in reading Brigham Young’s own words first in the journal of discourses. And then in Richard Van Wagner’s book and realizing, oh my gosh, this was like the best thing they could find. Like they were either going to include thumb screws or just this little section or include his threats or do you know what I mean? It was like they were, they were so carefully picking through trying to find the least bad thing they could find to include. It’s really interesting to see how we have, how we have dealt with our history by those who have had access to it when we didn’t, you know,
[1:16:44] Jay Griffith: right now just to be uh so to bring it more current times to be um kind of fair to church leaders. So when Richard Turley and my friend were working on those, those essays, they were also tasked to teach that history to all the general authorities.
[1:17:07] Michelle: OK? Because they just didn’t know one of
[1:17:08] Jay Griffith: the 12. And, and again, my experience serving, you know, in various leadership positions over many years and with um particularly a number of bishops. Um and, and then France that went on to be state presidency and a mission presidents these guys, for the most part, very, very few have any time to dig deep in the church. I mean, when you think of how many podcasts, how many books have been written? It is. And I mean, just think of the Joseph Smith papers this themselves deep and broad, so deep and broad. Um And, and so, um a lot of, a lot of church leaders for decades have not known that history, you know, um particularly correlation departments, you know, I mean, they, they, they have topics and then they cherry pick whatever will feed into that specific topic that they’re trying to, you know, get us to, to be on board with. So,
[1:18:12] Michelle: yeah, and I think what you’re saying is never assume maliciousness when another another explanation
[1:18:19] Jay Griffith: or even knowledge about certain things, you know, I mean, that’s not to say that that certain people back in the day, you know, throughout time have not and, and not even for nefarious reasons but have chosen to share certain things and not share other things. Um I mean, that has happened and, and I think detriment of, of the church um that, I mean, I think that is why we, you know, the last 1015 years saw such an exodus of people. I mean, for people particularly like, I, I mean, I’m not sure how old you are, but again, at 63 I grew up with a very specific certain narrative, you know, of church history and, and I think rough stone rolling. Well, Eugene England was my first entree through a friend who was Els president at the time. Um my first entree into more um expansive thinking about church topics. Um and not the, so I was raised in a fairly conservative. Well, so my, my father and again, so we had my mother and me and family homie name, my dad had a chalkboard or white board teaching us none dare call it conspiracy part of the, the John Birch type approach.
[1:19:46] Michelle: So I know Benson promoted it and, and I have to say I still am quite conservative. I’m still very libertarian and, you know, so I’m not,
[1:19:55] Jay Griffith: I’m not being critical of that. I’m just saying, I’m just giving you context when I was in, in the environment I was raised in, you know, it was very much, you know, very much that way. And, and also um um uh oh, I’m not thinking of the right word. I got an argument with my biology teacher in front of the whole class about evolution and creation, um scientific creationism I think is what? So um you know, he’s very much anti evolution stuff. It was on my mission where I finally um became, you know, a believer in evolution and, and continued to be a big believer in evolution. I see it spiritually. I mean, our theology teaches spiritual evolution. So I don’t know why it wouldn’t make sense to do physical evolution. But um but so, you know, but the, but my, my dad at the same time was a very loving individual and, and um you know, he wasn’t, um he wasn’t hard line with, with people who believe different than him, you know, which I think was very, very helpful and just knowing that he had done a lot of research and exploration, exploration in his conversion, I think was, you know, probably foundational helpful for me. My mom, you know, towards the end of her life, um said, you know, she never expressed the testimony as strong as my father’s. Although she lived with this extremely strong testimony, my parents, you know, ga again, they didn’t have a lot of money, but they gave a lot of their time and talent, um an enormous amount. And um my mom said something when she converted to the church at age 19, she said it just, it just made the most sense to me. I mean, that was kind of her conversion. So unlike my dad, feeling like he had this spiritual experience reading the book of Mormon, you know, this kind of burning thing. Um And yet they were both equally very faithful and serving in, in our church. And that’s what
[1:22:04] Michelle: we were talking about manuals. And that because my approach, my approach is generally try, I, I don’t like where we are so understanding that we sort of gaslight ourselves into claiming there was nothing wrong, nothing bad happened, you know. But, but what I like to do is, is try to get into the reasons that people did what they did, everyone had like understand the mindset the personality while at the same time being willing, like the more I have studied now I do see Brigham Young as like, like extremely narcissistic, very low in empathy in different areas and, and you know, and, and so so I can see that and be like, oh, these are not good qualities and they cause problems for us, but the people in you, you know, everyone had their reasons for doing what they did, right? And so so I can at least look at it and, and I love this, the Lord’s teaching, I’ve lived by this so much like whoever forgives is worthy of forgiveness, right? And it, it’s kind of like just recognizing none of us get it all right. That doesn’t mean that we’re all like the bad people. It’s just, it’s just, you know what, when I have opportunities to forgive others, when, when I, when, when forgiveness is very justified, meaning they did something really harmful to me, you know, then ok, I can just think if, if I can manage to forgive them, then I can just be a little bit less accused myself a little less accusatory to or myself or if I, when I do something to hurt someone else, I can know. Ok, I did that I hate that, but I’m worthy of forgiveness because I am one who forgives. Right. That’s anyway. So I like that approach with our leaders as well. The best we can agree.
[1:23:40] Jay Griffith: I agree. I agree. You know, and, and Brigham Young is such a character and, and, you know, we know from social science that, that it’s more common than not. And I don’t know what Brigham Young’s personality is, but for people that lean towards narcissism to become leaders of organizations and corporations, I mean, that seems to be what social science has indicated that it’s again, more common or not than not for that to happen. Interesting. Yeah, it is interesting. It doesn’t happen all the time but it happens, you know, it’s,
[1:24:16] Michelle: it’s a combination of that extra version and the, you know, like those, those personality traits that can lead to that maybe lend to, you know, lead that direction. But so this is, this might be an interesting thing to discuss if you’re not opposed to it, Jane, if you are, we don’t have to. But I think you and I probably have extremely different perspectives on Joseph Smith.
[1:24:37] Jay Griffith: I was, I did wanna kind of, that’s why I’m, I was trying to lead into this because, you know, uh over a year ago, one of your listeners who’s a friend of mine, um we, we had this, he was exploring, uh Denver Snuffer and some of his things. Um And anyway, in the course of the conversation. And then I think I’d listen to some of your podcasts and you kind of at that point, you know, kind of shifted from, uh, to, to Brigham Young being the one that, that instituted polygamy. Right. Right. And so I did want to discuss that because I, my comment to him was, you know, regardless of where you land on that, whether Joda Smith, um, which is kind of where I’ve landed did practice polygamy um and did institute it um um or that, that it was not Joe the Smith, it was Brigham Young that did and you know, kind of back history to make it look like Joe the Smith, either either position that you kind of land on if you’re um a member of the church of Jesus Christ, let a saint still and want and want to figure, figure out where to go from there. You’re gonna have a problem either way, either one poses some serious things you’ve got to grapple with. Right.
[1:26:03] Michelle: Right. Yeah, that’s go ahead.
[1:26:06] Jay Griffith: So, um and so, you know, I’m not sure if we will arrive uh we being the, the church or, you know, the body of saints or even the scholars will arrive at AAA definitive for sure it was this or that, I mean, history is really hard that way um to, to be ever very black and white because we’re relying on so much second hand and the longer it goes the more it changes, you know, I mean, my, this friend of mine, Jim mcconkie is, is, you know, an attorney, I mean, he’s a high level attorney. He’s worked on Ted Bundy cases. He’s working on, he’s worked on these recent cases with the Gabby Tito and the stuff that happened at the U with molestation. I mean, he’s a very good high level attorney. Um, he says when he says you take something as simple as a car accident and you take depositions from the witnesses, they will all be different, you know, and the more days go by, the more different they become and the more they change within, within each deposition testimony they can change. And, and again, science has taught us that our memories change. I mean, our memories keep reformulating with new information and we review things. And so to be, I think we have to be so cautious of being arrogant enough to say at any point in past history. It was just like this. It was sure. I think I just don’t know if we can arrive at that, but we can a arrive at approximate, you know, approximate opinions and beliefs and, and they may not all match up and in my mind, that’s the best we can do. And, and we still have to love each other and maybe we learn from each other by having the different views. And the issue to me is not whether J Smith did or didn’t, or Brigham Young did what he did or didn’t do what he did. The issue is God has always worked with imperfect people always to day one that, that you and I profits. We’re not, we’re not made of different cloth. We are human beings and, and we don’t get, and I don’t care who says it. I don’t care if Joe Smith said this and I don’t think he did, but he probably he might have, we, we never get pure revelation from God. It’s impossible. We get it through our DNA, through our life experiences. It’s filtered through everything that we are. It doesn’t, we cannot separate ourselves from the conversation with God and revelatory experiences. It’s, it’s impossible to do that because we are part of that. We are part of whatever God speaks to us. We are a part of that process. We are a part of that conversation and, and so it, we, we just have to be that we, we, we have to keep that in mind whenever we’re talking about scripture and some people hold scripture is like the Sacrosanct thing, like if it said it there or if it didn’t say it there kind of go back to what you said about polygamy. Well, you know, it depends. Uh I mean, script you, I just, I think we need to be um just hold everything with some lightness and not go. Um I don’t, I’m, I’m not sure how to express it. I just, we can, we can be contained within this current church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which for many people feels like, you know, got derailed long ago with Brigham Young and is still trailed since then and a lot of people leave because of that. Or we can still be a part of it knowing that it’s very imperfect and our current prophets aren’t getting everything right either. And, um, and, and work with each other. Right. Continue to work with each other with what we’ve got because it, um, harms and all like your daughters and my gay friends. Um, and, and trans friends, you know, they’ve, they’ve had a lot of harm from the church and then people with polygamy have had harm for the church. My, my wife has left, you know, because of some of the harm, I think that that’s come to her and she doesn’t feel ethically that she can be a part of this institution anymore. And I, and I support her in that and I appreciate that a, a about her and I have other friends that have done the same thing I’ve had to, I’ve had to come up to that line myself and go, can I ethically continue to support this institution when there’s a lot of things that I’m not agreeing with, um, not just past things that have happened, but current things that I don’t feel are, are in my mind best for this community of saints in getting us to be fully engaged with Jesus Christ and our Heavenly parents. Um And for that, my answer has been, you know, kind of like you in your, your speaks both spiritually and, and evidential, you know, and the evidence and rational mind has been to stay with it at this point. That’s not with not some adjustments, you know, um in, in things, but um
[1:31:36] Michelle: we can be told whether or not to stay, but also how to stay, how to engage with it. Right. Right.
[1:31:44] Jay Griffith: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so for me, you know, um and you probably talked about this but we, we’ve not had any um prophetic voice like Jovis Smith since Jovis Smith in that restoration. I mean, it’s not, we’ve had um more manager leaders, you know, I mean, that’s kind of why they’re called presidents of the church. They’re kind of presidents, the presence of corporation now. Um But God has always called us in scripture and otherwise, and even in Joseph Smith Day, he, he was very open to this, to hear God’s voice in the greater world, right? I mean, in, in, in the temple, all truth can be circumscribed in one great hall um that there’s prophetic voices and even scripture points to that even the Diamond come, there’s prophets that you do not know of
[1:32:38] Michelle: in Leigh’s Day. There were many prophets in Jerusalem. There are, there are often many, many many prophets.
[1:32:43] Jay Griffith: I mean, for me, I, you know, I, I, for me, and this is, this might sound crazy, but for me, Ben Brown is kind of a prophetess. She speaks such wise and needful things for people of our time. She says such helpful and good things if it’s good if it promotes, I mean, that’s an article of faith and it’s rooted in Paul’s teachings in the, the New Testament. If it points us to God, if it helps us be better living those two great commandments, it is from God. And, and, and, and so there’s lots of sources outside of our faith that I, that I engage in and, and, and I am enriched by and I pointed to God um that aren’t traditional orthodox prophetic from church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints words. And, but I, I still feel they’re prophetic in revelation and from God. Um And I can, all that is to say that regardless of the argument of Joseph Smith instituting polygamy or Brigham Young, you know, making it appear that way. The problem is still we’re dealing with people that God works through. Both. I think God worked through both of those people, both imperfect people to keep doing the best God could do with what he had, what, what they, I like to say they, our heavenly parents had at the time and, and we’ve inherited that and we always inherit that. And, and so the question is what do we do with it now moving forward? Um And that’s why for me it, I, I can live with either one of those scenarios. They’re not, my faith is not pinned on either one of those scenarios, Joseph Smith, never having done polygamy or Joseph Smith, having done polygamy and, you know, trying to cover them up himself and keep it on the down low himself. And then Brigham Young’s his own, got his own crazy stuff going on in addition to all that. But I don’t need Joah Smith to be this heroic, perfect figure. I don’t, I, I, he so can I just, he was so good at accumulating and, and grabbing any good thing that was around. I mean, most of all those revelations that we have from him, you know, didn’t come out of ailo out of nothing because, you know, he was aware, he kept aware of things and he loved to learn and he loved to explore and he, he was not too afraid to try things. And so he had a lot of failures because he wasn’t afraid to try things, which is a great way to live, you know.
[1:35:24] Michelle: Yeah. Yeah. Well, ok, let me, I just have to respond to that one part and then we can move on to, to a different thing. But just in terms of, I like what you said about like we don’t receive revelation in a vacuum because it has to come through us, you know, we can receive pure revelation. But the second we try to speak it, it’s, it’s through our lens and our mouth. Right.
[1:35:43] Jay Griffith: And I can’t get it pure. I mean, we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re not God. We’ve got, we’ve got this machine that we’re working with that our spirits in and, and it’s,
[1:35:55] Michelle: there’s so
[1:35:55] Jay Griffith: many,
[1:35:55] Michelle: it has to be our perception, shapes it. Yes.
[1:35:59] Jay Griffith: Yes. I mean,
[1:36:00] Michelle: I hear you.
[1:36:01] Jay Griffith: So we’re not gonna, it’s not gonna be God’s thoughts. It’s gonna be how we interpret what we thought we got from God.
[1:36:08] Michelle: Yeah. Sure. But I do, I do want to just say like a couple of different things. So for me, actually, while I avoided the question of Joe Smith and I found peace with it either way, learning this that I have learned has given me more peace about the character of God because when I, when I would have these discussions with my husband or other people and, and Joseph, you know, was flawed and he did this and it was like, well, if God would work through a man doing that to his wife, what does that mean? Do, do you know what I mean? Like I like I did find peace with it and it worked through it, but it has been, and then I, and I recently read a speech by Hiram, of course not include Hi Hiram has been just excised from the church history. Brigham Young cut him out. But him giving a speech saying that God, God uses pure vessels. I, I’m, I’m butchering it. But, but I do think that since it gets um has to come through a person, it makes sense to me that God does use as pure vessels as possible. And so I like it has given me peace. I, I have realized, oh, it is a more important question than I’ve realized before I got into it because the book of Mormon comes through Joseph Smith, the, you know, like so many things come through Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, we get the problematic structure of the church in a lot of ways. And so it does help people have a different backstop of how much, how much baby is in that bath water. It helps with that question. And it has helped me understand more of the character of God. So that is part of why I think the question is relevant because while God uses all of us and we’re all flawed, there are, there’s a big spectrum of flaws, right? And, and, and so I think it does, I, I don’t like lumping it all in together and saying, oh, everyone’s everyone’s imperfect. So it doesn’t matter how flawed you are. God can use you as a pro as a prophet or not. So I, I do want to just push back on that one part but to the other things you said of we still are navigating this. Like the question becomes irrelevant to an extent when we are saying, what do we do with the church today? Right. And we still, that’s where I think it is like, I, I guess for me, this is the story of the earth throughout time is we are in a fallen imperfect world where things become corrupted, always, right. God restored something through Adam. It immediately became corrupted. And so, so the question isn’t, where’s the perfect organization and institution that will never become corrupted, that never has existed and never will exist? I believe the question is, does how like, like for me, the important question has been, the important insight has been that repentance is a constant invitation. And so we as individuals can continually repent for false traditions or you know, and the church will do what it’s going to do. But, but my repentance doesn’t for maybe for some people, they feel like leaving the church is part of their repentance. For me that hasn’t been, for me, the greater challenge has been staying and navigating and loving people who, because a lot of a lot of people in my community probably um left also during 2020. That was a big wake up call for a lot of people who have, who had, you know, experiences that I relate to. And so that that’s that it’s been so interesting for me because during 2015, really a huge exodus happened with the policy and you know, it was already happening, but it just, and then 2020 I just watched the exact same dynamics play out on a completely different side and it’s been heartbreaking to see almost this, you know, this destruction of the church. So anyway, sorry to spend time on that. But I, I do want to know. So you’ve told us a lot about how you navigate it, but do you have anything else you want to, to say?
[1:39:40] Jay Griffith: Sure. Sure. So just to segue kind of from there is part of my navigation is, is part of what we just discussed is um the scriptures are, are filled with pretty fallible people being guided and used by God. You know, Jonahs, one example, King David, I,
[1:40:05] Michelle: I, I would agree with King David, but I really have a difference of opinion between Leigh and King Noah. And I think those are kind of the examples of
[1:40:19] Jay Griffith: no King Noah was completely from what little information we have in the book of Mormon. He seemed completely wicked. I’m not saying Jonah um the prophet Jo was um David. Um I, you know, even the story of Abraham and Isaac, y you know, if you look in the history, Old Testament, history and the culture that Abraham came out of, you know, we, we, we see that most of Christianity sees that story one way. I see it as a story where um he misinterpreted what God was asking him to do and just about did something horrific. And then we’ve created a story and we do this all the time, right? I mean, that’s what my point is about stories. We don’t make sense of things and give you
[1:41:07] Michelle: one little, one thing about the Abraham story that I find interesting is not only, well, I, I tend to agree with you more like God was, there was a Ram was like, hey, knock it off and especially as a woman, as a mother. I’m like Abraham did not have the right to kill so’s child without so’s permission. That’s where I come down on that.
[1:41:25] Jay Griffith: It’s a good example of patriarchy. Why patriarchs not? She would have had a,
[1:41:30] Michelle: she had at least as much claim on that child like I’m sorry. But, but the thing that I find interesting is we as the LDS people are the only ones who have glorified that story. The term Abrahamic test is specific to LDS people and grew out of polygamy. So, right, because it’s how we, how we use that. So anyway, I just wanted to say, yeah, we have some big problems.
[1:41:55] Jay Griffith: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, again, these are stories but they’re, they’re based in the, the real thing of life where God takes people that we would just go. I would never pick that person. They do not seem good enough, righteous enough, pure enough, good intention enough to do your work. God, but God has continually done that and I’ve, and I’ve seen that in my own experience. So, um, just that, so for me, that’s easier. That’s more of a testament to the character of God than have, than, than having to. And, and it’s fine that you do this and I’m glad it brings you peace that Joseph Smith would have not made in my mind. You know, some covert mistakes very understandably doing some things that a lot of males have done over thousands of years, not rightly wrongly, but do, um, I, I can, I can, I can live with that. I, that, that’s again my character, my, for me, my character of God being able to still get the work done with people that just don’t seem like they would ever be useful for as a tool. You know, one of my personal examples was, was lovely. I guess I could use myself. I’m, you know, so imperfect anyway. But, um, I started home teaching the guy or he was, we, we became home teaching partners. He was a Connor of the church up in this area where I live in. And uh, he became a member of the church because he was sitting in a bar, depressed drinking, he had hurt his back. He is a truck driver and, and out of work and an inactive member of our faith was at the bar drinking and heard his story and she said, well, let me take you to my bishop and then you can get some help because he was about to lose his apartment. And so she took him to the bishop. He was so, um touched that this bishop would help him, you know, financially with his needs that he cleaned up his life, joined the church and continues to be, you know, became young men president. And just, this is one of, I mean, God will work anywhere and anything with anybody. It, it doesn’t, you know, to any degree and that’s God’s work. You know, some people are a lot more receptive and able to, to receive things, certain things, but even they can be whacked out in certain areas of their life and God will still work with them. Yes, I believe, you know.
[1:44:37] Michelle: Yes, I completely agree with you on that. I think, I think the difference I see, like I, I think that God will and does use anyone who even just, you know, is in the right place at the right time. We’re all willing. Right? I think that the difference I see is, um, sort of the, like, like we could say, oh, Jesus could have been sleeping around and doing all of these criminal things and, and God could work through him because God can work through everyone. I do think that there’s a difference between what people are called to do and what people do is maybe a clarification that, that I would add to it because I do get uncomfortable with like, oh God can work with anyone because God does work with all of us and, and we all judge each other in different ways. Like people have their idea of what a righteous person looks like based on whatever, you know, and we get it wrong, we’re all wrong, right? But um, but when God has given us specific commandments, the very first commandment to Adam and Eve is, you know, like not to commit adultery, basic, I mean, you know what I mean to cleave to none else and the, the level of hypocrisy and dishonesty and just sexual manipulation of, of young girls and, you know, all, all, all of that does not work for me with the character of someone called to do what I believe Joseph Smith was called to do. So that’s where I see that on
[1:45:56] Jay Griffith: the story that you’re, I mean, the sexual manipulation by of little girls is the far extreme negative projection of Joseph Smith getting married to, you know, a 14 year old or 13 or 14 year old. Um I don’t, I, I think, I don’t think he was a sexual predator and, and that was what was going on there, you know, in that. Um, I don’t think, I mean, that’s the, the, so the scholars, you know, I, I, and I know you don’t hold these scholars, the, you know, whether it’s Richard Bushman and all the scholars that I’ve personally know, and have gone to with this question who said, yeah, that’s, that’s, uh, this theory that Joseph Smith didn’t do it. And Brigham Young, um, you know, backstory, everything that is a theory that’s been around a long time actually. Um, and they said, you know, we, we
[1:46:53] Michelle: talk about Joseph Smith the third is that who, who they’re saying? It’s been around a long time.
[1:46:58] Jay Griffith: Well, in general, the idea that’s, that’s again, come to fore again that you’ve come to believe in and I’m not saying it’s wrong but that, that, um, Brigham Young, you know, kind of recreated past history of, to, to, to that Joseph Smith didn’t do polygamy at all. That, that wasn’t a part of the thing that Joseph Smith did, you know? And these are, these are, and I, I know there’s a skepticism of professional historians, but there are people that have spent,
[1:47:29] Michelle: I want to clarify that I have great respect for them lives. I have great respect for them. I just think we should all go ahead, sorry,
[1:47:36] Jay Griffith: digging into this kind of stuff. They just don’t see the evidence that supports your point of view. And even, and, and they’re not, they’re looking at always looking at fresh evidence too, but that’s not where they land and it is not uncommon whatever the history is. There’s American history, European history, whatever the history is. Historians usually don’t agree, which is what I hinted to earlier. So, um, so again, for me, the bigger, there’s bigger issues here, you know, bigger issues of what is the most important thing that we need to spend our time and energy on in life, knowing that, that our church is infinitely small, as big as we think it is right now in the world’s history. And that Christianity in general has been incredibly small part of all of human history. So that those are all bigger questions from, from this perspective we like to take of, well, we’ve got this little church that’s been restored and it’s supposed to, you know, it’s, I don’t know, I, the, the bigger questions for me are, is just again, day to day what I’ve come to believe and you don’t have to be a Christian to believe this idea of what Jesus Christ to me so beautifully articulated in words. And indeed, how do I treat my fellow human beings to me? That is what God is mostly, if not all about. Of how do we love each other in a more Godly way and everything else are appendages just like just like, you know, Corinthians 13 and Paul is gone, you know, faith, hope and charity. All these things, charity matters the most, how we treat each other and degrees of glory and all these other things and ceilings. And Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and polygamy and all these other things are, can be important. Um It can be important to our own personal spiritual journey and, and the institution itself, but we can’t lose sight of what, what matters most in, in, in the bigger picture of things, particularly when we’re talking about billions of people that these things don’t even matter to because they weren’t part of their life story and they’re not even a part of their life story. Now, if they’re Hindu or Muslim or Catholic, all these larger, larger populations or the nuns now, right? The unchurched people that we really need to be worrying about the generations coming up, whatever culture they’re in. Um How do we hold that space to get people to treat each other? Well, we’re not doing it well in this country politically or religiously it seems like right now. So what, what do we do to help, help my Children, my grandchildren, you know,
[1:50:38] Michelle: so I, I I’m tempted to just kind of end it here and play the video that you want to play and then move on. But I, but I want to, I want to respond to what you said too. I
[1:50:48] Jay Griffith: mean a conversation. So please,
[1:50:52] Michelle: and I love what you’re saying.
[1:50:53] Jay Griffith: I’m not expressing where I am not that that’s right for everybody. And, and I would like to talk a little bit about my family because that’s part of what helped me get to where I am besides podcasts and books and stuff I’ve read and, and the, the, the, the remarkable opportunity, amazing opportunity as a non sc school without a degree in college. I mean, I had three full years but to, to spend time in the same room in conversation with some of the, the most beautiful, brightest voices within the, the LDS culture um of, of scholars and stuff, you know, I, um, I just, I can’t imagine. And then people that aren’t as well known but the people have been important to my faith journey like a Dan Witherspoon and other people that, that were happened to be there. They gave me things to read or, or, or a Bob Rees who have, you know, gone through faith crisis or thought through all these difficult things and been able to um for them at least, and it’s not, I can, I don’t think it’s right for everybody but for them, stay engaged with the church. You and I appreciate and love still despite, despite everything. So go, go ahead. What were you gonna say?
[1:52:11] Michelle: Um Well, yeah, and I do and I do want to come back to that because it is amazing. I, I think this idea of the sort of the universal and how small we are is um true and also can be to me a deception. It, it reminds me of that. What is it? The crabs on the beach? Story of the starfish I can save that. You can’t save them all. Well, I can save that one, right? Like the idea of lift where you stand because I have like, I have a lot of thoughts of what’s happening in the world and I’m like, God, why am I doing polygamy? It feels so small and unimportant and
[1:52:41] Jay Griffith: that’s not what I’m saying. I don’t want to communicate that what you’re doing is super important and, and big and big. So I love what you’re doing and I don’t, I didn’t mean to communicate that. So, so it is like, it is like the starfish and crust. I mean, the work that you were doing does matter a lot.
[1:52:59] Michelle: We can just do what we can do in our community, but the way
[1:53:02] Jay Griffith: different, every person will be doing great things
[1:53:06] Michelle: and, and I think what it is, I think it’s actually easier to love people on the other side of the world than to love like your little brother that you’re growing up in the home with you. Like, like it really is how we conduct ourselves in, you know, like I try so hard when people attack me or come after me to try to just let it sit then really look at what they’re saying, respond either not respond or respond in a kind way. I’m not 100% perfect, but I, I think I do a pretty good job and I sure try hard. Right. And so, um it’s so easy online to think, oh, that person has a podcast. I can just rip them to shreds and, and they don’t know how that impacts me and with how hard I’m trying, how it devastates me and I have to work myself through that. Right. And so I think that the more we can recognize these things and just become as charitable as possible in all of our interactions that spreads and ripples, I can’t save the people in the congo, I can’t save, you know what I mean? But what I can do is say, God, how do you want to use me? And how much can I spread patience, love kindness rather than hit back and, you know, a soft answer. Turn away rap anyway. So I agree with what you’re saying.
[1:54:22] Jay Griffith: And your podcast does that really? Well, I mean, you’re doing that you’ve brought on like Patrick Mason, a friend of mine, you know, you’ve brought on, I said Brian Hall too, you know, come to my group and, and, and, and, and that’s what I love about. You. You do hold that space, you held it. That’s why I brought up your daughters. I thought you held it beautifully. Well, you know, and, and so, I mean, I’m a tiny little thing in, in, we’re all so little. But, but, but it’s important that matters right, because the sand on the ocean beach adds up eventually. I mean, it becomes a beach. You know, that’s
[1:54:58] Michelle: what the more, the more people invested in God. How do you want to use me today? And how much can I ho how much peace can I create? Rather than division, the more people invested in that, that, that’s all we’ve got. That’s all we can do is just our own little piece and it’s infinitely small, but exponentially important. Right? Infinitely important. That’s, that’s what it comes down to. So, anyway, so I think we agree. But yeah,
[1:55:27] Jay Griffith: we do. And I didn’t mean that to come across at all as dismissive of what you’re doing in your, in your great work. I mean, seriously, it’s just, um I don’t have the energy to do what you, I mean, that it takes an enormous amount to do what you’re doing and it takes an enormous amount of a good big heart that’s open to hold the space. There’s plenty of podcasters out there, you know, I mean, and we know them, I’m not gonna name names but that, that have a very um pointed and part of it comes from their own pain that they’ve had with the church and feeling of betrayal and, you know, I, I appreciate and understand it and, and now they’re at a place where they have a hard time looking backwards and seeing any good that the church has given them their lives. And so it becomes a space um where I think in their minds they’re trying to be very open and um rational about it. But it, but it’s
[1:56:28] Michelle: one
[1:56:29] Jay Griffith: way. Yeah, very
[1:56:31] Michelle: criticism.
[1:56:32] Jay Griffith: Yeah. And their criticism is often valid. I mean, it’s, I mean, it’s not like there’s not like, you know, I mean, there’s a lot about Brigham Young. I mean, it’s the more you dig into Brigham Young, it’s hard, it’s hard.
[1:56:47] Michelle: Yeah, but criticism needs to be balanced with it, to be, to be honest, like there is validity to, there are problems but there aren’t only problems, right? You can’t, you can’t define something only by criticism. It’s not, you know. And so um there was one other thing I wanted to say that I think is actually important with um and I didn’t, I don’t wanna make it that I’m defending my podcast. I just wanna say like all that any of us can do is what we can do, right? But, but one thing I do feel like one thing that I feel like is really important is this understanding that um bad ideas create bad actions, right? Like, like bad roots lead to bad fruits. And so and so like, like that Sam Harris whole criticism of religion is all he can see is the bad ideas and bad fruits. But he’s again blind to the good ideas and the good fruits,
[1:57:42] Jay Griffith: right? So I think that over the last few years,
[1:57:46] Michelle: I just listened to a recent interview and I’m just like, oh, that guy is tough for me.
[1:57:51] Jay Griffith: He’s better than Dawkins or Yeah.
[1:57:57] Michelle: Yeah. Yeah. But I still, I find him very frustrating but um but the um well, and, you know, he’s doing his best to. Right. Like, we’re all trying and I’m glad that he’s willing to have conversations. But I think that bad ideas, like, for example, the, the priesthood ban and good people who bought into bad ideas could sit across from someone and tell them you were less valued in heaven. That’s a terrible thing. Right. Or, and, and I would not let my child marry you. And I don’t know if I want to associate with you. Right. And so I think that the idea of polygamy or the idea of racism or like, I think there is good work as members of our own religion to try to show bad ideas, like, try to minimize the bad ideas and help people find better ideas because I think it leads to important fruits. So, so I wanted to bring that up too.
[1:58:53] Jay Griffith: No, I thoroughly agree. I mean, that’s why I do this group. I’m always trying to for that. So I, I thoroughly thoroughly agree. Um, but again, I would go back to the, the, the analogy of the fruit and Jesus uses this and I remember one day thinking well, yeah, but you can have a beautifully good fruit tree and it’ll still have some bad fruit come out of it, some of it, you know, I mean, it, it, it, it’s always the difficulty of analogy, right? They only can go so far but they’re still valuable, you know, they’re still valuable,
[1:59:28] Michelle: right? They are. And you know what? That probably is apt because the question is, is it a really nasty sour apple tree where everything is bad? Which is how some of our critics look at us or is it like, you know what, this is a beautiful fruit tree and yeah, there are some bad apples but for the, but for the most part, if you pick a good apple, you know, it’s gonna be delicious.
[1:59:49] Jay Griffith: Yeah, I like how you brought that around. Yeah. Well said, you know, a lot of, well, a lot of what I’ve learned um to where I am now is for making lots of mistakes and doing things poorly, both as a, probably as a member of the church and as a parent, even though at the time I really thought I was doing things the right way, you know, and, and, and, and doing no good and I look back at some things I, I did as a parent go. Wow, that was what, what it was is me trying to do God’s work using Satan’s tools, you know, like,
[2:00:25] Michelle: exactly. Yes,
[2:00:27] Jay Griffith: manipulation. Um And not even realizing I’m doing it but, but, you know, using some of those and, and, and frankly, it’s, it’s been hard for me to look back and actually see at times where the church has kind of done some of those things to me kind of manipulative things, you know, and I think it’s been at a good intent. I, I really believe that, but that doesn’t change kind of as you spoke to earlier that doesn’t change some of the harm that can come. Right. When we, when we do that, it, it, it doesn’t work. And, um, and it might be one reason that, you know, my, my Children, I, I was so, you know, gung ho on, we gotta do family home reunion every week, we gotta do our prayers morning and night, you know, and you know, whether you feel like it or not and, and, and being um so dogmatic about it again with good intent, but I could also say part of it was the church is at least at that time, I don’t feel like it’s that way as much now near the way, but I am the patriarch of the home. I have responsibility to save my family, get them back, all, all of them to the celestial kingdom. You know, there’s this heavy pressure of, of, of expectation, you know, and, and everything. Um you know, each of my Children left at a different time as is my wife and, you know, not all clustered at once, but how many Children do you have? You have, you have the 32 biological and one adopted. And um so, you know, my oldest Aaron, um he uh started, you know, pulling away, you know, probably around 14, a little bit visibly, he might have been pulling away earlier, you know, internally, I’m not sure about that. Um, but, you know, at 15 things got harder. Um, you know, I don’t know how much of his A DH D played into that. Um, because at 15 he wanted to get off the medication around somewhere, maybe 14 or 15, he’d been on it since about eight and that was a choice. He and Jane and I all made together, we watched a video, we researched what we knew and again, this is long, you know, many years ago, he’s getting close to 40 now. He’s 38 I think. Um, um, but he didn’t, he started really not liking how it made him feel, you know? And so he decided he wanted to get off it. We said, ok, um, behavior changed a bit quite a bit. Um, in terms of his ability to, uh, to do well in school, you know, um, he’s always been a very smart kid so he’s remained a smart kid, but his ability to focus was hard, really, really hard and I think more of probably how I parented was maybe more of pushing back against the church. Um, that, uh, you know, I have to take some responsibility more for that, I think. But, you know, the ad d may have played someone into that. Um, hard to know. So anyway, he started playing well. He, he still kept coming but, you know, um, you could see it and then he, you know, he didn’t want to come on a mission and that kind of broke my heart, uh, that he didn’t want to serve a mission, um, until he eventually, you know, worked and then he kind of left our home earlier earlier. Our t teenagers were really hard for us, even though we only had three of them, unlike, you know, you got a whole house full of, we had three teenagers at one time and it was, felt like a war zone. It was just
[2:04:07] Michelle: so my oldest two boys both went to college at 17 and I, I homeschooled to enable that. Yeah, it was, it was, it was also like, bye, my mom, my mom, I mean, they’re wonderful but it’s hard. My mom who has nine told me she’s like Michelle, it’s just like pregnancy. It has to get uncomfortable enough that you’re like, ok, I’ll just give birth and get, it’s like, it’s like being full full term and you’re like, I’m uncomfortable enough that you can leave now. So
[2:04:42] Jay Griffith: I know, I mean, it is, it is. I mean, obviously they do need to push back, obviously they need to have their own ideas and they, if they’re ever gonna leave
[2:04:52] Michelle: and it makes you unable for you to let them go, but
[2:04:56] Jay Griffith: be some tension there. You know, you, you have friends, I’m sure as I do that, you know, somehow they kind of breeze through it, you know, it was fine. It’s been really fun to know our kids as adults and be friends with them on that. You know, it’s a whole different, different thing. It’s been lovely but it was really hard and, and, you know, you’re, you have this expectation, kind of the same expectation. You, we often are given partly from our culture and partly from church maybe. But that, you know, it should be a certain way, right? It should be all roses and always be harmonious and
[2:05:30] Michelle: the eternal family. We’re going to have an eternal family. If you take them to church and do prayers, you’ll have no empty chairs in heaven. That has. So speaking of another bad idea, speaking to a dear friend who, you know, one of her adult Children is leaving the church and having to grapple with what does this like, like, you know, like her son introduced her to the term sad heaven and, and, and it’s like it is, it’s heartbreaking how people suffer.
[2:06:01] Jay Griffith: And this is what you’re trying to point to. I mean, aside from the root thing of Brigham Young or Joe Smith, you do larger ideas that are so valuable that that happens. Another one of those things. I mean, our, our, our leaders, our current leaders are still saying things and doing things that are harmful and not helpful. And I can say that feeling like I sustain them and love and appreciate the good they bring. But again, it goes back to this idea that I have that. I mean, God just does what God can do, you know, with what God’s got, you know, and, but God’s got all of us. I mean, we are the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It’s not just 13 guys in the red chairs. All of us have responsibility to make this thing work. All of us have a voice, all of us, it’s incumbent upon all of us to do the work, not just expect them to get the answers and we go, ok, whatever you say,
[2:07:02] Michelle: well, and, and you know, I think that God is calling each of us to recognize exactly that we all have exactly the same access to God. And we need to stop putting people on pedestals and expect them to look, look to someone to stand in for God. We have the obligation like Moses wanted to take all the people up to meet God, right? We each need to come to know God and to know truth without having it. Have to, I mean, it’s great to have people speak and then take what resonates as truth, right? Like when something, right? But don’t I, I just, I’ve always hated that. We put a name behind a quote in the church as if like if the right person said it, then it’s true. No. If the spirit testifies that it’s true, then it’s true regardless of who said it. But Yeah. Yeah.
[2:07:46] Jay Griffith: Yeah, I agree. So, anyway, um um, so I’ve learned a lot from my mistakes, you know, and then Ben, um my middle son was always all in um, so all in that sometimes it was concerning like his testimony when he left on his mission was so, so, so strong. So uh which is on one side you’re going? Oh, that’s a lovely thing. And he always stayed very, I mean, he was just right down the line, you know, but he was also the hardest to live with and, and
[2:08:21] Michelle: he was so certain,
[2:08:23] Jay Griffith: yeah, so certain. But also it’s just part of his personality. I mean, it’s just how he was born and it’s not a ding on him, you know, it’s taken many years for him to get to the point of he’s just, he’s, he’s really a, and he’s, he’s been well loved, he had a great group of friends partly because, you know, he’s super smart. I mean, he’s just outrageously smart. Um, but he thinks he’s on the spectrum, you know, he’s finally come to because he might be somewhere on the spectrum and, and of, you know, that autism and so that might feed into this, you know, very black and white thinking that he had um um and, and just being kind of more difficult to have, being in a relationship within a family. Um And, and I think if he heard, heard this, he would, you know, be OK with that. Um I try to be conscious of that because I’ve, you know, brought my kids in before um a part of my faith journey. Um And then when he came back, his testimony was just as just that way. And II I thought to myself, boy, if some, if one domino falls in his picture of the gospel of Christ, he’s gonna fall hard and, and it did happen. Um And you know, and then he became um super angry with the church and me as, as a representative is his father who, you know, at times, um you know, pushed too hard the church and represented that and, and, and that was super painful and uncomfortable, you know, for both of us, you know, and I mean, he called me his abuser, um not, not in a physical or sexual way but spiritually abuser and he calls, he felt, he says the church abused him. Um So, yeah, and so it was just really, really painful heart and hard for him to see, you know, or feel like anything good came from and he felt like he was lied to, I mean, you know, very hardcore atheists, you know, Dawkins and Sam Harris and the four horsemen, all these guys, they’re just um became, that became his world for a while. Um And uh I remember one time I was helping my, his brother um uh roofing his garage and, and my older son rents from my younger son and, um, and I was up there helping and, um, man, Ben just got into it. I mean, and he was just, you know, F Jesus Christ and F this and F that and, I mean, just, he was being as outrageous and, but it was coming from a, a deep pain and anger and place of pain, you know. So it really wasn’t hurting me, you know, I wasn’t aghast at it, you know, I mean, I, I God’s God’s a lot bigger than me and taking care of God. You know, I don’t need to defend God. I mean, anyway,
[2:11:21] Michelle: God can handle our emotions. Yeah. Yeah.
[2:11:23] Jay Griffith: Yeah. I mean, this is one of God’s beloved Children and, and anyway, it’s not for me to go. I can’t believe you’re saying this and just be horrified, you know, I just tried to listen while he yelled at me all these things, you know. Um And I found that over time as I would let my Children vent or others or friends and that’s part of what the space of thing again, faith again is let them just share where they are that, that becomes a place of healing for them. I mean, yeah, and, and when we keep pushing back, when someone has a, has an uncomfortable question for us in the church or, or says something, you know, I, when I have gay friends, you know, down in Oaks, they just just, uh,
[2:12:09] Michelle: it’s so hard, it’s so hard
[2:12:13] Jay Griffith: and you gotta, I mean, you just have to be in a place to go. God. God doesn’t have an ego number. I, I don’t care what the scriptures say about a jealous God or this God or that God, I don’t worship a God that has an eagle that has to defend themselves. I mean, that is just crazy that we think of a God
[2:12:33] Michelle: as it’s us that gets offended. Not God. It’s us taking offense, not God.
[2:12:39] Jay Griffith: You know, I mean, God is so capacious in their love, you know, and they can look at like we used to have to do sometimes with our little kids and go, oh, you know, it’s just where they are, you know, or
[2:12:51] Michelle: they can just sit there and go. Oh, that really hurts, doesn’t it? I think that that’s how God meets us. Like I understand
[2:13:01] Jay Griffith: they feel
[2:13:04] Michelle: and when people are in pain like that, when we give them something to fight against because they’re, they’re in pain. So they’re going to fight. And the worst thing you can do is make them feel like they have to fight because that’s what it is when they can, when they can just scream and be met with, I’m so sorry, then they can start to set it down and start to
[2:13:25] Jay Griffith: whatever that takes them and we don’t need to, we don’t need to, we’re
[2:13:29] Michelle: not in charge.
[2:13:30] Jay Griffith: Yeah. Just let God do. God’s work. You know, again, we just need to love in the moment as Jesus taught us to love, you know, that’s, we don’t have to worry about their salvation. I mean, I do not worry about my children’s salvation or my wife or not sealed. They’re on a different path, you know, um God will take care of them. I just say 10 to loving as Jesus said to love,
[2:13:58] Michelle: I love that. I love that. That’s one of the things I talk about like this idea of eternal families. So we’re going to hurt our relationships with our Children now because we want them with us for eternity. It doesn’t work right. If we want, if we want an eternal family, then just trust God. Like, like that’s one thing I’ve also like, there’s no problem big that I or my Children or anyone can create that God’s not big enough to fix, right? They can’t ruin God’s loving plan. And yeah, it’s, it’s they’re a gift to us to help us learn more, to help us progress beyond our limited thinking and bad ideas.
[2:14:37] Jay Griffith: You pointed to that. Well, in your interview with your daughters, you thank them. And I thank my Children. I think all my, I mean, I’ve known I’ve got gay friends, you know, since the early eighties, you know, when I started home teaching some that, you know, that came out to me as a single man when I was still single and I’ve just for whatever reasons, God has brought people like that into my life and what a gift they are, what a gift. I mean, I don’t know very many of them still in the church. I mean, one of the great examples that, that is most remarkable. It’s sat in my living room and born his testimony um and been with me on several occasions. Uh John Gustaf Rathel. Um this is a still excommunicated gay man back in Minneapolis, married to his black partner who’s never been a member of our faith. John is active in his ward as much as he is. And unfortunately, he’s with bishop on a stake that for years have allowed him. I mean, I don’t know how they can’t with a guy that loves God and loves the church as much as this excommunicated man does. You know, he doesn’t agree with how the church still thinks and treats, you know, the LGBT Q community, but he still loves and appreciates and advocates for the church. I mean, it, it it’s just is remarkable in that way and you, you sit across from him and hear him bear why he still believes and, and you cannot accept, be moved, you know, because he’s artistic. Yeah. And there’s so I, I have had this and undeserved gift of being able to be with people like that, you know, that have made me grow people that other the, the more sometimes the more orthodox not all the more Orthodox Jacob Hess would love a person like that. There’s plenty of orthodox people that, you know, would not be offended, but we’re so invested at times of converting and changing instead of just loving and hearing and letting that change us to be more Christ like.
[2:16:54] Michelle: Right. And you know what I wanna say also because so I think Jay that you and I probably have very different perspectives on 2020 I’m guessing. And
[2:17:04] Jay Griffith: I, I have mixed, I, I it’s like my, my political ideology, I’m, I’m not affiliated. I’m, I’m noted as a Republican so I can vote in primaries because that’s the way, that’s the way the party works here in the city. Utah works. But I go by person in that party. I’m very frustrated with both parties. So,
[2:17:24] Michelle: but, but I, but my experience because I think that this is I, I guess I have to bring it into the disenfranchised people. Like right now, the more fresh disenfranchisement are these people that there’s fresh pain, right? It’s, it’s very real and, and happening now. And so so I also think because Jay reached out to me and invited me specifically to come to a meeting and some things were said that like he knew how they would affect me. And I, I don’t know, I just watched you look directly at me with like, hey, you OK, you, you know, like, like I see you, I know that I know that’s not, wasn’t easy for you to hear but I see you. I mean, you know what I mean? And I think that that’s exactly. I love how um I’m drawing a blank right now. I can see her face but I can’t think of her name and I’m, oh Julie. Um my gosh, my brain, Julie Di Acevedo Hanks. Julie Hanks. I love how Julie Hanks and she’s come out and had a conversation with me and she said like her go to is who is the most vulnerable, who’s in the most pain in this group and that’s who, who needs me to make a comment or needs me to minister or needs me to see them. And I think that that is something we can do. We don’t have to agree with people in order to see them and let them know they’re seen and valid and cared about. Right? I think that that’s a
[2:18:46] Jay Griffith: thing Jesus was about what you just said.
[2:18:48] Michelle: What did you say?
[2:18:49] Jay Griffith: It sounds like what Jesus was about what you just said. Maybe so. Yeah, that the thing again, I had, you know, I was so grateful to have that young black Republican man that expressed how he had been treated,
[2:19:04] Michelle: right?
[2:19:05] Jay Griffith: Yeah, how hard that was for him, you know, as someone who supported Trump, you know, and, and
[2:19:11] Michelle: well, and I think it was comments about vaccines as well and about all of the, you know, like those are the comments because my experiences during 2020 were, I’m still not ok, I’m still dealing with some trauma,
[2:19:24] Jay Griffith: it goes on. But as you said, that population of people, um, you know, thinking about where universities have gone for decades now and, and, and the cancellation culture and all the stuff that’s been happening, feeds, feeds, that kind of this is not right or fair to be judged this way, you know. So, um, yeah, there’s very understandable reasons why I think why we’ve seen politically and why we’ve seen with vaccines and all that. I mean, there’s, you know, my kids, my, my, my, my boys and their wives are anarchical capitalists and so they believe just in capitalism, no government at all. You know. So you’re on a very far extreme that way. So we have some interesting conversations. So I get a lot of, you know, they would agree with you on the vaccines and all that kind of stuff. Um, so II, I get, I get where you are with that and understand and I, and I feel bad that that’s, and I, and I love, you know, so many of my friends tend to be on the other end, the progressive liberal side. But I have, you know, plenty of people like you that I can appreciate and understand why you believe what you believe and, and fill out what you feel, you know? I mean, there’s some good reasons.
[2:20:49] Michelle: Well, I think in general, it’s so easy to call for compassion, for your perspective, for the people that you see that are hurt and be blind to what you’re doing. Like we all, I mean, that’s what I think really Jesus is calling us to is to stop dehumanizing people, stop other people, stop only caring about the people who think like you or you know, it really is like the quest for all of us is to see someone who represents everything we abhor and see their humanity and accept them as a human. Instead of piling on all of that you disagree with, onto that person, right? That’s, that’s what we’re about to do is just see the human everywhere and love that human with compassion and, and an openness
[2:21:35] Jay Griffith: and, and to, to do that true love is not a theory, it’s not a theology, it’s, it’s an action and, and we can’t get to that place that you just described unless we actually engage, right? I mean, we can talk about it, we can talk about, yeah, we’re gonna love our enemy and do this. But until so we’re on the ground and having to face it and, and, and, and be in front of our enemy or those that, that are just, you know, drive us nuts, then, then we’re not doing it. You know, one of the gifts that the church can bring us our church, particularly because of how it’s structured geographically. And you go with the people that you live with is it puts us in those positions to not just be with a chosen group that, that we like and that, that says the things we like, but we’re gonna be thrown in. Hopefully. I mean, Eugene England talked about that beautifully in one of his most famous essays is, you know, the church is as true as possible, right? You know, you get, you get the opportunity to practice your Christianity.
[2:22:40] Michelle: Yeah. And you know what one of my prayers that I’ve relied on a lot throughout my marriage and my activity in church. In fact, you know, it’s just God help me to see them through your eyes. Like I’ve sat through many lessons like God, please show me, help me to see this person three hours because I am struggling. Right. Right. And, and, and we can do better in our marriages and in our family relationships and our church relationships. Like I think it’s funny when we’re like, I need to save the earth when we haven’t saved our. Do you know what I mean when we, when we haven’t found that way to love in our immediate relationships? Right? And so so I do think that that practice of trying of asking God because I think charity is a gift. It’s not like I’m going to be charitable today. It is a God, please, please. I need your help here because I have a charity opportunity right before me and my charity faile yours won’t give me yours, you
[2:23:36] Jay Griffith: know? Yeah. And you know, and it’s, it’s like, you know, Jonathan, he, the great social scientist, you know, wrote the, um, the happiness hypothesis. He talks about how, how genetically we produce predisposed to, to lean, either liberal or conservative. I mean, that’s, that’s within us, that’s our genes. And he talks about how, that’s a great gift because we actually need each other. We need the other because if it goes all one way, it’s gonna go all wonky and bad. If it goes all the other way, it’s gonna go all wonky and bad. And it’s hard
[2:24:11] Michelle: for us. There’s infinite divisions. The other is always going to be there. Even if you get a group of people that you think think exact like you, the divisions are going to start happening. They will, it’s baked in,
[2:24:23] Jay Griffith: it is baked in and, and just like you said, but we need each other, right? We need, we need those differences and God seems if you just look at the physical world and you know, like there’s what 240,000 different species of butterflies, something like that. I mean, with any given species, the diversity is outrageous. So God must love variety. And it says that in, you know, our endowment session, you know, I mean the creation story, God loves variety just for its own sake. God loves beauty for its own sake. You know, not everything has to have utility. It often does, but it doesn’t,
[2:25:04] Michelle: it might, I think everything does have utility, whether we see it or not, whether we’re aware of it.
[2:25:10] Jay Griffith: Most definitely. So, my daughter, you know, so my, so Ben, um, uh, left the church. Um, he’s, you know, still very much in that atheist mode but I think a lot of the anger has been able to start to bleed out of him a little bit. Um I remember we got, it was had nothing to do. So, a friend of mine who’s a very progressive liberal professor at BYU um had started a petition to um bring back beards and he had a picture of Brigham Young, you know,
[2:25:44] Michelle: the statue right there in the middle,
[2:25:46] Jay Griffith: bring back beards to BYU. And, and I had, I had given a, I was asked to give a talk at Sundt about why I stay, why I stay in the church. And he had come to that and he gave me this little piece of paper with a link, you know, where he was hoping I would encourage other people to help in this petition to let get BYU to stop making people not allowed to wear beards. Um And so I, I have to shave
[2:26:10] Michelle: before they can go take their test and they’ve been studying all night. I have a lot of friends struggle with that. Yeah.
[2:26:15] Jay Griffith: So anyway, I, I put that on, I put that online on Facebook. And lately I haven’t done much on Facebook or Instagram but I, I put it on there and, and Ben sees that and, and, and then Ben says something really snide about Brigham Young. I mean, that’s easy to do. Right. There’s plenty of things to be critical about breaking up. But, but you take, you take, uh, a religion, you know, a hater like man and in any way, you know, it wasn’t polite, it wasn’t, you know, and, and, and so this guy, I won’t use his name, um, who I didn’t know super well, but I had to had come and do I think again, faith again and is an amazing, done, amazing amount of human humanitarian work. He’s beloved by many of my friends and, and everything anyway, he, um, he, uh, shoots back another zinger, you know, at my son and, and then it becomes this, this subtle nasty thing going on, on, on Facebook. And, and so I’m, I’m kind of trying to, you know, moderate a little bit and then, you know, and then I’m, I’m getting attacked also pretty soon by both of them.
[2:27:30] Michelle: Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh. Oh,
[2:27:32] Jay Griffith: it was really, it went on for days and, and somehow God help me in that space and at one point, Ben text me on the side and says, I am shocked you haven’t taken this down, you know. And in the meantime, I’m getting side information from, um, this professor and, um, he’s unfriended me. He’s, he emails me this nasty letter. I mean, he’s super, I mean, he just is so upset with me. One thing I didn’t realize is this stuff is showing up on his face. I don’t know, I guess I should have realized it, but it’s, I guess showing up on his Facebook page too and he’s getting people mad, I guess, upset with him. But, um, I, I had both Ben and I, and I especially had a number of people, some that, you know, that are friends of mine had left the church, thanking me for holding that space of Ben, letting, letting, letting Ben express himself and me not, you know, kind of counterattack or doing anything like that. Um, and other parents saying, wow, this was amazing to watch unfold, you know, um, because, you know, I, I deal with some of this stuff and, and thank you for just holding the space. Um, I, I mean, I did lose, you know, this professor friend, he wasn’t a close friend but lost him. I tried several times, you know, to, to have that mended. Um, not that I felt like I needed to apologize, you know, but, um, I try to keep relationships even if they’re not willing to apologize, I try to stay on, you know, good terms and forgive and move on and that’s never happened. I don’t expect it ever. Well. But, um, but my point is what, what you’re pointing to is, and what we both said is holding that space for people right to, to, to kind of excise that pain and not get offended and not feel like you need to defend the church or defend God or, but just walk with him, just walk with him and love them. You know, and that’s been really helpful for me. I’ve, you know, I’ve often made mistakes and not done that well. Um And it doesn’t mean it’s not sometimes still challenging. Um but it’s been a great blessing. Those hard things have been helpful. Um And, you know, eventually my daughter at 818, she left, she, she considered leaving it. It’s not officially leaving at 14, but she had a friend going to another church neighborhood church and wanted to go with her, um start attending, not attending our church, attending that church. And right about that time, there had been some survey that had come out that said youth that attend our church, Strategic Grass Lat Saints tend to do less drugs, tend to have less premarital sex. I showed her that article and said you as a parent, I, I feel like it would be best if you would stay in our coming to our church and she wasn’t really happy coming to our church that was just dynamics, were hard there with other young women and stuff and other things going on. And so my dear daughter, you know, just because of the adoption and just, she just struggled, a lot of, a lot of hard struggles for her. She’s at a remarkable place now. You know, she’s overcome alcoholism and all kinds of stuff, you know, it’s just, I, I, she’s one of the people I admire the most for what she’s gone through and become. Um, but anyway, so at age 18, she just came to me and said, I’m out of here. I don’t wanna come anymore. I mean, she didn’t say it meanly. She just said, I, I just don’t want to be a part of this anymore, you know, and my heart broke because otherwise my second kid, this was before Ben left. So, you know, each stage was painful as I had had to let go.
[2:31:32] Michelle: And you, you’ve been the dad who was as like, like all of us would look up to you as the guy who did morning and evening scripture study and prayer and you had, you had done what you, I, I, no, I, I think that, I mean, give yourself grace too, right? Because you were very best example of living what you believed and trying to, it just, it makes it even that much more like, like that’s a painful thing that you experienced
[2:32:00] Jay Griffith: and, and, and we probably should say, pointing to the doing the check boxes. It’s not that I didn’t spend time with them and love them dearly and tried to be the best dad in all different ways. But putting such a priority on the church’s check boxes of your kids need to do this and you need to do this and then you will get this outcome and having that kind of, um, being too, um, I don’t know, hardcore or obsessed or concerned about that, I guess, as opposed to just again loving them as they are letting you know if you don’t have prayer that night because something went wonky. It’s ok, you know, don’t push too hard, you know, those kind of things. Um, so, you know, that was, that was a real heartbreak. I remember crying in the shower after that time, Aaron, it was a, it was kind of in stages, it went over time, you know, and, and stuff. But, um, and then Ben, you know, blew up with us and that was, there was some other outrageously hard things that happened with all that. Um, you know, you know, you work through those and they’re really painful. Um, it was painful, really painful for Jane and I at the time, um, but as, as you, as we talked about pain earlier, there’s so much that you learn right from pain. Um And so I’m, I’m grateful for those hard experiences. Um And then Jane and two, what was it? I don’t know, it’s been about four or five years ago. It was shortly after the general conference after um the exclusion policy from 2015 was taken away. That’s a whole other story. You know, um I had people calling me gay friends calling me that day when it came out in the news and they were in tears, you know, 11 young gal or my kids’ age had lived with us for three years. Her dad, I used to home teach his, get her dad, her family when she was tiny and stayed friends with them all these years. And then they moved back east and, you know, he’d been in a bishopric high priest Crum leader and then, and then eventually comes to our house pops at her door one day and he says, you’ve heard it coming out right here. I am, I’m coming out and divorced his wife, you know, came out and, but we main, you know, maintain the friendship with the whole family and, um, but she called me, you know, because she loved her dad, you know, and that exclusion policy was so painful to her. So, and she’s a returned missionary and all that and other friends, it was just, it was just like a crazy what, what’s the church doing here? You know, what’s going on? I mean, you’re talking to a guy that has walked in the gay pride parade, you know, with Mormons building bridges and, and stuff and, um, and I’ve done that and that’s how strongly I feel about that. Um, even as young men’s president, I watched the gay pride parade and then hurried back to correlation, you know, to be on time for that. So, um, it was just painfully hard and, and really, you know, that was another thing that troubled my wife deeply. Um, I think at that point, she had already started pulling away a bit. She might have only been going to relief society at that point. Um, she’d had enough ethical things that just bothered her and, you know, just real quickly, one of the things that Temple has never spoken to her and one of the things that contributed to that besides our terrible marriage was that she was told by an institute teacher that you’ll only understand in the temple what you’re worthy of. I mean, what a stupid,
[2:35:45] Michelle: oh, that’s a bad one. I never heard that before. I mean, I have heard like we, we’re so good at the emperor’s new clothes, especially the pro polygamists that are still coming at me. Well, you don’t need to worry about it because only those who are worthy can understand the doctor. Oh, ok.
[2:36:02] Jay Griffith: I know. You can understand why. I mean, there’s, I mean, it’s like one more pebble on that jar and it’s gonna tip right. I mean, the scale it’s gonna eventually,
[2:36:12] Michelle: and I want to clarify when you said when you said our terrible marriage, you caught me off guard. You met your terrible wedding day, not your terrible marriage.
[2:36:19] Jay Griffith: Thank you for clarifying. I just wanted to
[2:36:22] Michelle: make sure everyone knew what you were talking. Remember that horrible temple experience
[2:36:29] Jay Griffith: that? So I think she’s already started pulling away there and she’d already stopped going to temple years before that. So I go on my own. Um, and, and still found it useful and, you know, I would still go and come back feeling like I wanna even be a better husband. Not at that point, not for effect, not to try to persuade her to change or do anything. You know, II I finally thankfully, you know, Richard Ward talks about this second life, second half of life in his book falling upward. Um I love Richard Ward. He’s just one of those amazing voices that God uses and, and um you know, I finally got to the point because of the difficulty in my marriage where I, I wasn’t sure if, I mean, I, I was sitting in, in the temple after a session in, in, in the felt like temple, one of the side rooms there right off the celestial room and uh just pray my guts out because I mean, some things that happened in our marriage and, and stuff that I wasn’t sure if we’re gonna be able to keep together and I just was desperate um for answers and for help. And um um I, I had this very strong, you know, not like a voice from heaven, but this super strong impression that came to me that said you know, you can lose your wife, you could lose your job, you can lose your kids, you can lose your home. I mean, all these things that matter so much to me. Um, but you will not let me, you will not lose me. And, um, that was really helpful and there’s some other, you know, I’ve had a lot of just, I think as you have just like, I can’t see them as coincidence, you know, but very needed helpful answers to prayers. And I mean, one of these was from a person out of our faith who called me one day while I was at work. And she just said, and she’s not even active in her faith, a lapse Catholic. But she said, you know, I was praying and you came to mind and I felt like I needed to call you and tell you this. And, um, I mean, it was such an answer to prayer, you know, she, she just talked about how, you know, when she went through menopause, she’s just amazed her husband stayed with her. It was so hard and this was partly what was going on in my life and my marriage. Um, and, and, and thankfully, it kind of changed Jane into a much more assertive, you know, person. But there were things also that, that were really painful, uh, for me and, and during that whole period I’m just going, I, there’s don’t know if I can keep all this together. You know, I’m, I’m trying and I’ve made these mistakes and, and she’s justifiably angry with me for, you know, being too controlling manipulative. And I, and I didn’t realize it was and, you know, all these things and anyway, that really just f, that was a really beautiful experience in the temple that just freed me up to go. I just don’t need to worry about losing any of these things, You know, I mean, I, I don’t wanna lose them. I’d hate to lose them any of those things because they’re important. They, they add to my happiness, but I don’t have to live in the fear. I, I it will be ok. I don’t have to live in a religion of fear. And our religion is not our, our faith church Christ, the latter saints is so much less fear based than a lot of mainstream Christianity, but we still have a lot of it. We still do a lot of fear based stuff. We still do way too much
[2:40:24] Michelle: and when we set the fear down, the things we’re afraid of are less likely to happen when we’re trying to control our kids is when they’re going to pull away from us when we’re trying to, right? Like
[2:40:34] Jay Griffith: to have the perfect marriage, trying to have the perfect family, all this kind of stuff
[2:40:38] Michelle: when everything is gonna explode.
[2:40:41] Jay Griffith: Yeah. Yeah. And try to have the, even the imperfect internal workings inside. I mean, it’s just never, you know, there’s a, I think it’s Ephesians four, just a beautiful passage that talks about, you know, living with these contraries within us. Just, just live with them, you know, just, you know, you’re gonna have all this stuff going on and you’re never going to be in a perfect peaceful state. I mean, you can work for a peace but peace is not meaning always stillness, you know.
[2:41:18] Michelle: Right. Well, peace really is letting go of control peace. Like what we find people like, what, what is it the Buddhist leaf and like, like, like just, you know, like, OK, this is what’s happened. Like that is one thing, the unthinkable things I went through recently. It it really has kind of the next level taken away my fear because I’m like, there’s nothing that can happen that God can’t heal me from. And of course, I don’t want bad things to happen. But I know the power of healing so profoundly that I just kind of like whatever happens is what God wants to have happen because it’s in my highest good and God can heal me. So OK, let’s go, let’s, you know, that’s, that’s really a hard, hard, hard um gained perspective, but, you know, a perspective I’m thankful for
[2:42:12] Jay Griffith: so that exclusion policy. So um President Nelson was the Apostle at the time when that happened and then he and his wife went over to Hawaii and spoke and that was the first, the first time it ever was labeled revelation.
[2:42:28] Michelle: He, he tried to, uh, that was a hard, that was hard.
[2:42:32] Jay Griffith: And, and so it was interesting because, um I heard that and I had this really strong impression come to me and it was fascinating because it, it just, it, it just came to me and said he will walk that back. And, um, and I mean, it was a really strong impression and then, and then he did and it was fast when he became prophet, you know, and, but, but at the same time it was the conference right after that was walked back or. Right. Right. Yeah. Right around that, that Jane, you know, I’m listening to General Co we have general conference on which she wasn’t in love with hearing and she’s uh typing on her, on her laptop, which is kind of rare for her to see that we’re at the kitchen table together. And I said, what are you writing? She says I’m writing my letter of resignation. Oh, ok. I mean, I expected that might happen at one point. And, um, she said, you know, taking that back, uh walking that back, that exclusion policy was like, I got ran over one way and then they backed up and ran me over the other way, you know, I mean, and I, I didn’t appreciate that and, and this is, I would love someone that’s more articulate uh than me. And has a much bigger, bigger voice to write a short little book on that because that is our most recent example of a prophet um of, of revelation. That’s not perfect. That’s not right. That’s not that they want to stray that went there was just that, you know, I mean, that’s, that’s a really good, very recent clear example of how we don’t always, our, our leadership doesn’t always get it right. You know,
[2:44:21] Michelle: but the challenge for me and the challenge for me is we don’t need everyone to get it right. It’s the lack of acknowledgment. It’s God wanted us to do this and now God wants us to do this. That’s, that’s how you’re getting run over twice because really if they ran over you and they were like, we’re really sorry, we didn’t recognize fully the harm this would cause this wasn’t done. Well. That would have been an that would have healed. I, I mean, I don’t want to speak for Jane, but it would have healed me. I’m assuming it would have been better then. Oh, God did this and now God did this, right? And that’s, that’s where we get into the challenge is the lack of. Well, again,
[2:45:06] Jay Griffith: that’s what I mean.
[2:45:08] Michelle: Yeah, exactly. If they could have expressed the broken hearted contract spirit that God asks of all of us instead of this. Well, it’s just like we were talking about when you have to have the perfect marriage and appear perfect. Things are going to fall apart and they have to, they still feel I I’m speaking for them, but the appearance I see and what appears to me is that they still feel that they have to have this. The prophet can never lead us a stray mantle which grew right out of polygamy, right? This mantle of, we can never get anything wrong even if we destroy the church in the process and, and harm so many of the members. And that’s what I find to be the most tragic part of it is like if they would have repented, I mean, President Oaks awful statement about we don’t apologize. You know, it’s like then what are we? So that, that’s why it is.
[2:45:58] Jay Griffith: So here’s, here’s why I think particularly as an attorney Oaks says something like that and why we have a theological problem. We have early on the doctor comments. It’s 82. I don’t know um that God, how does it go when I have spoken? What I have spoken? And I excuse not myself, whether through the voice of my prophets, myself or my prophets, it is the same. I mean, when we talk, when we extrapolate from that scripture, what I think most people think, I mean, then it’s hard, it makes it hard. We, we need, we need to take scripture, whatever scriptures, even most recent scripture even talks in conference and we need to be able to say, well, I may have said that, but it’s not, it, it doesn’t work, you know, it’s just we have to find a way to, to, to, to make sense of it so that we don’t misinterpret it, we don’t teach false truth, right? Because, because if you take that literally, if you take that scripture literally, then how could you apologize? Because if someone across the pulpit in a general conference, it’s supposed to be the word of God, then it’s hard, it’s hard to walk back, it’s hard to walk it back. However,
[2:47:17] Michelle: even Brigham Young and as, as we’ve talked about as problematic as he was and even as problematic as this rescue of the hand carts was he did we have the story that he came back and said this morning, you heard Brigham Young, even though he was speaking in the name of God, but now you’re going to hear God even Brigham, right? Like, like even with that idea what I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken like we have to define more accurately what a servant of God is and a servant of God is someone. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So there are, I think that we have badly misinterpreted that scripture to get ourselves into the mess that we’re in, which I think, I mean, it’s just, it’s, it’s just such a, it’s like people will stop leaving when we start being more humble as an institution and as institutional leaders, right? Like, and we’ll be more attractive to more people. It’s that same, I don’t know, like that broken idea of, if I show any weakness, people will think I’m weak and, and that just puts everybody off. Right. And so, yeah,
[2:48:17] Jay Griffith: I think there is very much a symbiotic relationship between the leadership and the members of the church. I mean, this is a church of Jesus Christ, latter day Saints. They’re latter day saints just like we are and they almost every decision that they have made has been influenced by the body of saints. They don’t like that. They don’t like to think that way and, and often to be fair, a lot of members of the church don’t like to think that way. They want to feel like there is this pure revelation coming to a prophet prophet speaks, the thinking is done and some leaders of the church have said it that way, the thinking is done. And, and that, I mean, then why did God give us a brain?
[2:48:57] Michelle: Right. Right.
[2:49:00] Jay Griffith: You know, but um but there’s things, there’s institutionally things in the church and again, every institution struggles with this and we’ve fallen into this, this institutional malaise of heros and glorifying and perfecting the, the leadership so that we can’t see them for what they are and they can’t even see themselves. I think at times for what they are because it’s so ingrained in the way they do things, whether it’s how they walk up on the stand during general conference, in certain order and how they conduct their business in private. I mean, they have a, they have a huge reverence just for how they do their own business. You know? And there’s
[2:49:48] Michelle: kind of what you were talking about. They’re, they’re swimming in the water so much that I can’t even notice the water.
[2:49:54] Jay Griffith: I think if they watch, if they would watch the chosen a lot, maybe over and over watch the chosen, they might get a better sense of how reality really is. Right? Or maybe should be. There’s, it’s, there’s, we could go on all day. There’s so many things that we, that we share and love and care about. And, um,
[2:50:17] Michelle: so you are navigating, staying in the church despite all of your Children and your wife having left and
[2:50:26] Jay Griffith: most of them really anti religious. Jane. Jane is, I mean, Jane is, I’m very fortunate and she expresses that she feels she’s very fortunate. There’s plenty of marriages that end over religious disagreement like this. But, I mean, there’s alcohol in my home now. Coffee all, you know, all that stuff. So it’s, we, we have made peace with that. We, we, you know, we can live with that and, and she has expressed her appreciation that I accept her as she is and I appreciate very much that, I mean, she supports me, my think of again and faith again. She often helps do the zoom with it and comes, you know, to them and there’s times where, um, you know, it’s just some things not even, I think even the chosen is too religious for, there’s just, you know, she’s still working through this religious toxicity that she felt. Well, here’s a good example. You know, she minored in piano theory. She’s played piano all her life and you, you, I think play piano and
[2:51:31] Michelle: my family does well,
[2:51:34] Jay Griffith: she experienced, you know, from a young age, playing piano in church and being called to do that. She’s, you know, she has a very, she’s gonna retire next year. She has a very good position, high paying job. She’s very good. But within the church sphere it was like she felt pegged pretty much all, you know, you play the organ, you play the piano, that’s what you’re gonna do. It’s not like you can’t do other things and would be very good at other things. But there’s so few people that do those things. Well, that if you do them, well, you’re gonna get stuck with it. And, and so she started playing the mandolin, you know, right around when she left the church, she hardly touches the piano and she’s kind of like, you know, it’s just so associated with that. I’m not doing it for her in a way. But, um, but yeah, you know, we don’t, we don’t talk about religion much. My kids, not, not Michelle. Michelle is kind of Buddhist. New Age. She’s, she’s on her own track. She doesn’t have the same animosity. I think she has a space for God of some sort. Just doesn’t know what God is. But, but my, my boys and their wives, um, you know, do not believe in a God and, and have no respect and appreciation for religion. Um, and so we don’t talk about religion much and I don’t, it’s, I just don’t find it productive when they make snide remarks about it to do much or say much because, you know, it’s just, they love to argue and it’ll probably just not go anywhere. So I don’t, uh it, it is what it is, but they come over for dinner almost every Sunday, Jane, that’s her, what she calls her sacrament. She prepares dinner for the family and they all come and we have dinner together and we enjoy it and, you know, have, have a good time and it is such an interesting collection of people. Ben’s wife is from Sardinia, Italy. Her family goes back 500 years there. You know, that her father was a member of the church and, and still very active. Um, um Aaron’s wife, Lexi, he met in a strip club because she is and she says, told me when I asked her, yeah, call me a stripper. That’s what I call myself. I’m a stripper. You know, that’s how he met. His is still not legally married wife, but they’ve been together like 1516 years and have the only two beautiful grandkids that we have. She’s a good mom, you know, she really cares a lot about being a good mom and Aaron’s a great dad and, and here’s the funny thing, they were never gonna have kids. They, they were the kind of people that, you know, took four or five months off at a time, lived in a van, um, and not one of these sprinter vans. This is like an old Chevy van that I had to help cut the end of a mattress off so they could get in the back. They would live in the van park in parks, save their money, took these little backpacks and traveled for months at a time, South America and then another year, months at a time Europe, you know, they did that they were never gonna have kids, you know, and then listening, this is where I say God works in the most mysterious ways and through the most mysterious people, they’re listening to this guy in Europe. Um, Stefan Molyneux who’s an anarchical capitalist, very popular podcaster, um, who was a father and, and they each came to it on their own. Um And, and, you know, I’m not sure if their stories would be exactly the same, but I heard it from them and like I, I’m, I’m a, I’m a ultra runner trail runner. You know, I do h I’ve done 100 mile races and stuff in the mountains anyway. So Aaron and I were training, uh he was running with me on some, one of my training runs and we worked out a lot of things through these runs as we talk. But um for him, he was talking about how Stefan Meli talked about how important it is to how valuable it is to be a parent and how things he’s learned. And he said, and if you’re an atheist, which Stephan Molyneux is one of the best ways to transmit your values and your beliefs is by being having kids. And that, that was one of the things that, that moved Erin along that line of, well, they all have kids. And then for LEXI, you know, she, she wanted to, um, she was thinking at the time and now she does, uh, she owns a burlesque bar and then she still strips at a different bar. But, um, she wanted to open a bar, uh, of a strip club, her own strip club because the guys that run these strip clubs are pieces of crap. I, oh, they’re just terrible people they use and abuse these women. And she wanted to, to have one that where they were treated well. And so, you know, last year I did, was it early this year I did do her logo for her burlesque bar, which is not a strip club for the same reason because as we talked over time, she wanted to create an environment that was better for those that work in it. And I thought I can get behind that. You know, it’s not my ideal, but no problems, but there’s no problems, there’s always problems, right? But um so she calls in to the show, you know, in Europe, this podcast and says, hey, I’m thinking about, I, I think I want your opinion about, I want to open this bar and, and I’m trying to figure out how the best way to do this, this strip club. And, and so she explained all this and he said, ok, have you ever thought about being a mom? You know, and there’s kind of like dead sauce says, no, think about it. That was his response to her, to her strip club thing. And, and, and again, so that got her thing about and, and now they will tell you because they’ve told Jane and I, we cannot imagine not being parents, you know, they love it. I mean, it’s hard, it’s particularly hard. Yeah, Lexi grew up in a home with a mother that was so big hearted, good hearted, but a little mentally off divorced because her husband had an affair when Lexi was less than one years old, single mom working two jobs trying to support all these kids. Lexi had to help, you know, babysit her older sisters, I think she was 14 when she had the first kid. And then, I mean, just and then living on church food and top ramen and mac and cheese. And basically, you know, and then having her mom bring these near do well guys in because they gave her sob stories and her mom is so big hearted, I mean, just a hard, hard life, you know, and, and then, you know, Lexi um considered going on a mission at one point. Um But then was told by her bishop, she wasn’t worth, this is long before she was a stripper told she wasn’t worthy for some reason. I can’t remember. Um And then, you know, waiting for this missionary to come back and because they were gonna get married and then the missionary dumping her um working uh being success successful enough as a single woman as a car salesman for one of the big dealerships um in Salt Lake and doing really well that she could buy a duplex by the University of Utah. Um That’s what she had when we, she’s
[2:58:58] Michelle: always been smart and entrepreneurial
[2:59:01] Jay Griffith: and a hard working girl. And, but she, she basically got ran out of that job by all the other guys. She was the only woman and they got very jealous and started putting pressure on her and, and working against her. And um so, you know, things kind of devolve a bit in her life. Um And um she somehow becomes this stripper. She’s always, I guess of the dance and I mean, she takes great pride in her ability to do the pole. You know, I mean, that’s how she strips. She’s a pole dancer and, and, and the athleticism and she says, I feel like I get more respect when I do that than I’d ever got as a car salesperson. Wow. And so it is, and, and she really loves the job. She loves what she does. Um, and, um, I remember one time chain coming home from some relief society thing on a weekend and, um, Lexi’s had come to our house for some reason and she’s on a piece of paper trying to draw her different things that she does on the poll. It’s just the irony of that just cracks me up.
[3:00:13] Michelle: That’s so what? Well, we better get wrapping this up. We’ve been talking for a long time. But I have
[3:00:19] Jay Griffith: love. Do you have time for that, that David White poem?
[3:00:26] Michelle: Yeah. Yeah. In fact, is there anything you want to say as we are wrapped? I mean, I, I feel, I feel like we don’t even necessarily need to ask for your counselor advice, for people navigating this because you, that you’ve been filled, you filled us with so much. But, um, is there anything you wanna say? Wrapping up? And then, and then I will tell Jay shared a just gorgeous poem that he had wanted to play earlier, but we’ll just play it as the end and go out with it because I think it’s beautiful and described so much of, I guess just this journey of faith.
[3:00:56] Jay Griffith: I appreciate you letting me be on with you. Um And uh us being able to talk about so many things that are important to our hearts and I’m very grateful for that and I think you’re doing the great work and, and I appreciate you often um restating sometimes better than I have stated what I was trying to get across. So, thank you for that. I appreciate that too. And I hope you keep doing, you know, your good work and the wonderful thing is, you know, I don’t know what to think about vaccines and stuff. I, I see very good intention. People on both sides. I mean, my mom and my wife, she works for the University of Utah pediatrics. So she’s with doctors immersed in that for the last 15 years. So she’s gonna have a very strong view about that. But I also have read enough scientific history um and um listen to enough different things that I know we don’t always get things right. You know, I mean, does the best they can but there’s just as infallible, I mean, just as fallible as religion and any of us with opinions and just,
[3:02:08] Michelle: and just for a quick notification also, it’s not only just vaccines, it was like the whole, like, like people, there are people in my perspective that see this whole thing as a big global cabal trying to destroy the freedom of man. So, you know, vaccines are a drop in the bucket to how it looked to me. And, you know, so it’s a big picture of not just 11 that’s one element of it
[3:02:35] Jay Griffith: and like everything, there’s people all on that spectrum of people that see it as a big global cabal or people more like my boys that just see a corrupt government getting embed in the corporation and forcing people to do things that aren’t, aren’t real. And that’s just from a purely atheistic standpoint, you know. Um, so there’s, I mean, there’s a whole range of, of things going on there that, um, you know, you got big pharma, that’s,
[3:03:04] Michelle: it’s
[3:03:04] Jay Griffith: a mess,
[3:03:06] Michelle: it’s a mess.
[3:03:08] Jay Griffith: So there’s, there’s just lots of things like that and, and yet we have lots of different players with, uh, you know, I’m sure there’s players with me intent and, and people that are doing things. Um, yeah, that aren’t good. And then there’s lots of people with good intent that still are, you know, maybe not doing such great things, but they believe they are but they believe they’re, that they’re doing the right thing. It’s just, I mean, life is that way. Life is
[3:03:35] Michelle: messy, right? It also comes back to the same thing. Like, how do I love people and God, what do you want me to do today? Right. That’s all.
[3:03:44] Jay Griffith: And for people who, you know, because I thought about this too. You know, the conspiracy thing. I mean, there’s, I mean, there are conspiracies. I mean, our country was founded on a conspiracy, our, our country was founded by people creating a conspiracy to break away from a country they did not feel was serving them. Well, I mean, the revolutionary war people, things happen in back rooms and back doors, that stuff ha has always happened and continues to happen all the time. You know, I don’t know. I mean, and then there’s times where we think there’s a conspiracy in the world. It wasn’t, it was just a con conflation of things that happened to create something that did happen. Um So all those things are possibilities, you know, I don’t know. I, I,
[3:04:27] Michelle: and all of it could be happening at the same time. They’re a little, you know, like I, I guess, I guess it’s not even about the conspiracy. It’s just about what leads to freedom, happiness, peace, unity, what leads to control enslavement, lack of, you know, and, and which side of it are we on whether it’s a conspiracy or not? That’s what I would say more is I felt even with all of the things I thought for, you know, almost 20 like, like my faith journey for well over 10 years going through all this, I still was surprised in 2020. I, you know, like,
[3:04:59] Jay Griffith: well, our mutual friend Jacob has we, we talked about this. It was hard. He says, I, I know how you feel now, Jay, like about LGBT Q or stuff or things like that. This is really been hard, you know, for me, this is, this has been challenging. So um I can, I can appreciate that, you know, I can appreciate that would be
[3:05:21] Michelle: we’ll say goodbye. Well, I guess we can play this and then say goodbye. I sure will. So we’ll do this right now. Thank
[3:05:28] Jay Griffith: you so much. I love you dearly and I appreciate your good work.
[3:05:32] Michelle: Thank you Jay. And right back at you. I’m trying to get it to play. Here we go.
[3:05:38] David Whyte: Santiago, the road seen and not seen the road scene, then not see the hillside hiding and revealing the way you should take the road scene and not seen the hillside hiding and revealing the way you should take the road dropping away from you as if leaving you to walk on thin air and catching you holding you up. When you thought you would fall, the road seen and not seen the hillside hiding and revealing the way you should take the road dropping away from you as if leaving you to walk on thin air, then catching you holding you up when you thought you would fall and the way forward, the way forward, always in the end, the way that you came, the way forward, always in the end, the way that you came, the way that you followed the way that carried you into your future, that brought you to this place, no matter that it sometimes had to take your promise from you, no matter that it always had to break your heart along the way, a matter, it always had to break your heart along the way. The sense of having walked from deep inside yourself out into the revelation to have risked yourself for something that seemed to stand both inside you and far beyond you. And that called you back in the end to the only road you could follow, walking as you did in your rags of love, walking as you did in your rags of love and speaking in the voice that by night became a prayer for safe arrival. So that one day, one day you realized one day you realize that what you wanted had actually already happened. One day you realize that what you wanted had actually already happened and long ago and in the dwelling place in which you lived before you began and in the dwelling place in which you lived before you began. And that every step along the way you had carried the heart and the mind and the promise that first set you off and then drew you on and that and that you were more marvelous in your simple wish to find a way. You were more marvelous in that simple wish to find a way than the gilded roofs of any destination. You could reach. You were more marvelous in your simple wish to find a way than the gilded roofs of any destination you could reach as if all along you had thought the end point might be a city with golden domes and cheering crowds and turning the corner. At what you thought was the end of the road, you found just a simple reflection and a clear revelation beneath the face, looking back and beneath it another invitation all in one glimpse like a person or a place you had sought forever like a bold field of freedom that beckoned you beyond like another life, like another life and the road, the road still stretching on. Hm. The road scene they’re not seen, they’re not seen the hillside hiding and revealing the way you should take the road dropping away from you, dropping away from you as if leaving you to walk on thin air and catching you, catching you holding you up when you thought you would fall and the way forward, the way forward, always in the end, the way that you came, the way that you followed, the way that carried you into your future that brought you all to this place, no matter that it sometimes had to take your promise from you, no matter that it always had to break your heart, always had to break your heart along the way. No matter that it always had to break your heart along the way. The senses of having walked from far inside yourself out into the revelation to have risked yourself for something that seemed to stand both inside you and far beyond you. And that called you back in the end to the only road you could follow. The only road you could follow, walking as you did in your rags of love and speaking in the voice that by night became a prayer for safe arrival. That one day you realize, you realize that what you wanted had actually already happened. And long ago, as long ago and in the dwelling place in which you lived before you began and in the dwelling place, in which you lived before you began. And that every step along the way, every step along the way, you had carried the heart and the mind and the promise that first set you up and then drew you on and that and that you were more marvelous in that simple wish to find a way and the gilded roofs of any destination you could reach as if all along you had thought the end point might be a city with golden domes and cheering crowds and turning the corner. At what you thought was the end of the road, you found just a simple reflection and a clear revelation beneath the face, looking back and beneath it, another invitation beneath him, another invitation all in one glimpse like a person or a place you had sought forever like a bold field of freedom that beckoned you beyond like another life, another life and the road still stretching on.
[3:11:48] Michelle: Just amazing. Just amazing. Yeah, I guess we just leave people with that incredible message and recommend that anyone interested go and listen to it again because it’s even better. The second time. Thank you Jay for everything you have done, everything you do and for sharing yourself.
[3:12:11] Jay Griffith: Thank you Michel. It’s a pleasure to be with you. Thanks.
[3:12:16] Michelle: I want to again, thank Jay for all the good that he does in the world and all of the work that he does to try to help encourage people as they navigate this faith journey that we are all on. I want to thank him for coming and talking to me and sharing his experiences and his insights and just his big heart and I will see you all next time.
