Lately my responses to other people's blogs have been getting a little long. This post started as a response to Abelard's recent posting titled "Faith and Desire".
Ah, the mind games...
A: Why not? Isn't that a righteous desire, to want to desire to have faith?
Think of Alma's experiment on faith when he compared the word of God to a seed:
"... yea, even if ye can no more then desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words." Alma 32:27
From a faith standpoint It's not too shabby a thing to want to desire to believe.
Of course, desiring to believe is only a beginning. The idea is that doing so will lead to some change; whether that's as simple as increased solidarity to the church, or as real as carving a temple out of granite.
As far as applying that formula to not being gay anymore: In my experience, after decades of intense faith+desire+fasting+temple attendance, and years of counseling+therapy; there WAS a major change, but it wasn't the one I originally was shopping for. I left the church.
Personally, my favorite description of change comes from Angels in America. Mary-Louise Parker plays the role of Harper, a Valium-addicted Mormon housewife who's husband is gay. In this scene she's visiting her faithful mother-in-law (played by Meryl Streep) at the local LDS Visitors Center in New York City. Streep is setting up a diorama about the pioneers but steps out of the room leaving Harper alone with the diorama, when this happens:
