Are you from Mars? -- #LDSConf #FeelTheBern

I was going to title this Haters Gonna Hate, but then realized, I am writing about the opposite of hatred, so why start out with hateful words?

I had two things happen this weekend that troubled me.

Every six months, my church, The Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-Day Saints has a semi-annual General Conference, the first weekend of October and the first weekend in April. It is well-attended in the church's beautiful Conference Center in Salt Lake City and broadcast all over the world. If you are a member of the Church, you can either see this live, on TV, or read it or watch it online soon after. God's word gets out QUICK! For those who don't know, General Conference goes on for two days. It's long. The bonus is--you can watch it on TV in your jammies. The schedule is 10-noon and 2-4 both Saturday and Sunday and 6-7:30 on Saturday night. That's a long weekend!

One of the things that happens during the April Conference in the Saturday afternoon Conference is we get the church's stats. We find out about money. We find out about how many members there are. We find out about how many missionaries there are. And we do a sustaining of the Church officers. For forever, when we sustained the leaders of the Church, the words, Sustain officers by the show of the right hand, and everybody raised their hand. Then, any opposed by the same sign. Nobody raised their hand, nobody said anything. Until a few conferences ago, when someone screamed NO when asked to sustain the prophet. There was a hush in the crowd.

This Conference, the same thing occurred. I was online on Facebook at the time in a group known for its sweet, loving sisters and its Nazi-esque judgmental sisters. Someone posted on the group something to the effect: how dare anyone do that (meaning yelling no.) Why do they even go to General Conference? They have an agenda. They have no respect. Blah. Blah. Blah. The comments to this quickly went into two camps. The haters who fed this hateful feast and agreed with this sister. And the lovers who said things like, These are the people I try to sit with at church and hold their hands. These are the people who are hurting and we want them to know they matter.

At the same time, I was in a group for Empaths and those members felt the sadness of the people (there were two) who said no in the meeting. They also felt anger--which was coming from people sitting around them.

Strangely, the next talk, a marvelously uplifting speaker, Elder Mervyn B. Arnold was giving a message called (and I am not making this up) To the Rescue: We Can Do It. On the missionary moms group I replied to the angry post: RESCUE THEM. I mean, we were sitting there LISTENING to this very message about not judging and all these women were going berzerk! I wanted to ask these women: Are you from Mars?

The irony of the situation was saddening to me. But it got me thinking, because I saw the same thing with my Bernie friends. No matter how many times someone in a group for Bernie (and there are scads of them) says: stay positive, only talk about Bernie, there is somebody who posts rude (if also probably true) things about HClinton. (I write it that way so she isn't trending. I think. I hope. From this blog.) There is someone who trashes anyone who doesn't like #BernieSanders. And I think, have you LISTENED to Bernie? Have you heard how he wants his constituents to be kind? I heard that his campaign actually had to tell people to NOT contact superdelegates that have pledged to HC and harrass them. I mean, he had to say this because people were actually doing this--bugging and shaming and demanding the superdelegates change their vote! Being rude and mean! I want to ask again: Are you from Mars?

Kindness, Tolerance, Forgiveness, A lack of judging--they are not just important--they are essential.