What does your avatar mean?

[Jeffret]

I don't think we've had one of these threads for a while. I was reminded of it by no1saint's new avatar. So, if you want to share, what does your avatar mean?

Mine is a photo of myself and our youngest son carrying our canoe back from the lake on a camping trip a few years ago. My wife snapped the photo of us seemingly going in opposite directions. We were actually shifting it to balance the weight and set it down together. The photo has always amused us. Seems like there might be some symbolism there, but I have no idea what it is.

[MoPag]

I took old pics of the Nauvoo temple moon stones and inverted pentagram window, and I rearranged them into the Pagan triple goddess symbol.

I feel like it's an accurate depiction of my current beliefs with a nod to my past beliefs.

[MoPag]

It also felt really good to take something from a place that was disempowering to females, and make it into a symbol of empowerment.

[Jeffret]

That's cool, MoPag. I didn't know that.

[nibbler]

That's pretty interesting.

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Mine is a screen capture from an episode of the Simpsons called Lisa the Iconoclast.

It's of Hollis Hurlbut, the curator of the Springfield Historical Society that thoroughly believes the whitewashed legends that have been built up around the founder of the town of Springfield, Jebediah Springfield.

Lisa Simpson does some investigation and discovers that Jebediah Springfield is a criminal. Hollis Hurlbut doesn't believe Lisa but Lisa's research reveals that Jebediah had a silver tongue. They decide to exhume Jebediah's body, if he has a silver tongue it proves Lisa's research. If there is no silver tongue the whitewashed legends survive another day.

The screen capture is the instant the coffin lid is opened and Hollis Hurlbut sees the silver tongue, shattering his faith in Jebediah Springfield.

He quickly hides the tongue before anyone can see it in order to preserve the legends. Hollis has a change of heart and decides to let Lisa reveal the truth but in the end Lisa decides to let the town keep their beliefs in the made up legends of Jebediah Springfield because people seem to get some enjoyment out of them.

[wtfluff]

Current avatar: Self explanatory; representing my username.

My username represents the overarching thought (maybe that last word was different?) Running through my brain in the weeks following enlightenment to the truth about MORmONism, and the subsequent beliefs disintegrating.

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

Mine is a picture of Campbellite minister Walter Scott. He was responsible for the phrase "Plan of Salvation", ideas like the first principles and ordinances of the gospel, Adam and Eve in the terrestrial state, and other "unique" mormon doctrines later stolen by mormonism via Parley Pratt and Sidney Rigdon.

[Red Ryder]

I was sitting at a Red light when a Ryder moving truck drove by. I realized all my church baggage could have been packed into that moving truck. The Holy Ghost whispered “follow that truck, follow that truck....” So I did. Turns out I ended up in front of a house on an Indian reservation and the driver thought I was one of the moving guys there to help unload.

As an Elder in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I knew the Lord had prepared me for this day and had guided me there. I spent the whole day helping this family move into their new home. I felt the spirit so strong and just knew this family would become members of the true church. I realized this family was direct ancestors of the American Indians, even the Lamanites.

As a thank you for helping them move they gave me a golden box and told me to open it in 4 years. I put it away in my garage and forgot about it. Then one night as I lye in partial slumber, an angel dressed in a toga, chest exposed, reminded me to go to my garage and dig out the box. I listened before he pulled out a sword. That night I opened that box and it was the record of two peoples written in Reformed Comic Book script. Also in the box was a stone. The Angel then guided me to grab a hat, place the stone in the hat, and then I could translate the Reformed Comic Book.

I did and the sacred script said “Join NOM”.

The avatar was then revealed to me by the angel through the seer stone and the baseball cap in my garage.

[alas]

Mine is Kermit, who says it isn't easy being green. This goes back to my history of being abused as a child. My husband once summed up my not fitting in at church as "it is like you have a green face. Everyone can see that you are different. They don't understand why, but are embarrassed to talk about why you are different. And obviously, they assume that you are bad in some way because you are different." That was such a good summary of why I felt like I did not belong at all in Mormonism. But when you are taught to be obedient, then that is used to harm you, you just never trust anyone who wants your obedience. And someone who cringes that way over obedience makes for a horrible Mormon.

[Jeffret]

My husband once summed up my not fitting in at church as "it is like you have a green face. Everyone can see that you are different. They don't understand why, but are embarrassed to talk about why you are different. And obviously, they assume that you are bad in some way because you are different." That was such a good summary of why I felt like I did not belong at all in Mormonism. But when you are taught to be obedient, then that is used to harm you, you just never trust anyone who wants your obedience. And someone who cringes that way over obedience makes for a horrible Mormon.

Are you familiar with "Wicked"? The book or the musical. I like the musical much better than the book. It explores some ideas right along these lines -- what if the Wicked Witch of the West was born green and so everyone treated her differently?

"Where I'm from, we believe all sorts of things that aren't true- we call it history!"

"It's just, for the first time...I feel wicked"

[2bizE]

My avatar is of Bilbo Baggins of the Shire in the Lord of the Rings and in the Hobbit. It represents the journey I am on to find the truth.

[nibbler]

My avatar is of Bilbo Baggins of the Shire in the Lord of the Rings and in the Hobbit. It represents the journey I am on to find the truth.

There and back again.

See you at church Sunday.

[glass shelf]

Mine's a reference to rebuilding a life that you love based on things that are important to you with the pieces of the broken shelf.

Learning that the LDS church was a huge con and realizing how damaging it was to be raised in it doesn't mean that you're doomed to be a bitter apostate no matter how hard they try to convince people that's true.

[MoPag]

That's pretty interesting.

- - - - - - - - - -

Mine is a screen capture from an episode of the Simpsons called Lisa the Iconoclast.

It's of Hollis Hurlbut, the curator of the Springfield Historical Society that thoroughly believes the whitewashed legends that have been built up around the founder of the town of Springfield, Jebediah Springfield.

Lisa Simpson does some investigation and discovers that Jebediah Springfield is a criminal. Hollis Hurlbut doesn't believe Lisa but Lisa's research reveals that Jebediah had a silver tongue. They decide to exhume Jebediah's body, if he has a silver tongue it proves Lisa's research. If there is no silver tongue the whitewashed legends survive another day.

The screen capture is the instant the coffin lid is opened and Hollis Hurlbut sees the silver tongue, shattering his faith in Jebediah Springfield.

He quickly hides the tongue before anyone can see it in order to preserve the legends. Hollis has a change of heart and decides to let Lisa reveal the truth but in the end Lisa decides to let the town keep their beliefs in the made up legends of Jebediah Springfield because people seem to get some enjoyment out of them.

Such a good episode!!!

[Linked]

Mine is a screenshot of Link from the video game The Legend of Zelda. I love the game and was doing a playthru with my young son when I found NOM. I figured it would be anonymous enough to prevent anyone from IDing me, which seemed important at the time. I also like the name Linked because of all the links in my life that my faith transition affects. My link to my wife, my link to my kids, my link to my parents and siblings, my link to the institutional church, my link to a god, my link to my fellow nommies, etc.

[RubinHighlander]

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102817/

Ruben Farr, a character from the movie Rubin and Ed by local Salt Lake City artist, Trent Harris. Trent is known for his whacky off-beat films that weave in strange threads from Mormon culture and history. Before Napoleon Dynamite, there was Rubin and Ed. It's filmed at several of my favorite places in Utah: Goblin Valley, Factory Butte, Pineview Reservoir and downtown SLC. There’s also a motel downtown Ogden, one I’ve driven past hundreds of times, growing up in the S. Ogden area. I also think this movie Crispin Glover’s best work as an actor.

http://echocave.net/films.html

On their adventures to bury Rubin’s dead cat in the in the Hanksville Badlands, Rubin comes to realize he is the king of the Echo People. In my adventures in the deserts of Utah and exploring the strangeness of my own subconsciousness, I’ve come to a place in my postmo life where “I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space.” (Hamlet).

Anyway, Ruben and Ed is a lot of fun; I can even see the office where I work in one of the SLC scenes. You can pickup a copy of Ruben and Ed on DVD from Ken’s Rare Books in downtown SLC and I highly recommend a visit to that awesome bookstore!

Funny side story: Last year I was at Factory Butte with some photography friends. We stopped near a wash to check out a little slot canyon. There were a group of people walking out of that wash and it looked like a film crew. I saw one of the guys had a hubcap in his hand and it had cloth ties on both sides of it. I asked them if they found the cave of the Echo People. To which Trent Harris replied “You must bet a Rubin and Ed fan.” We found out they were filming a series of short videos to tag onto the Ruben and Ed movie. What where the chances of that happening for a movie filmed there 28 years ago?

[græy]

This is a great thread!

I took old pics of the Nauvoo temple moon stones and inverted pentagram window, and I rearranged them into the Pagan triple goddess symbol.

I feel like it's an accurate depiction of my current beliefs with a nod to my past beliefs.

Very cool MoPag!

My name and avatar go together. There is the well known adage in the church that white symbolizes purity. White clothes at baptism, white clothes in the temple, white shirt as the "uniform of the priesthood."

As a teen I was president of deacons, president of teachers, 1st assistant in priests. I was voted in as a leader in multiple high school organizations and captained my soccer and basketball teams. But starting on my mission and continuing ever since, I have always been called to "lower" callings - assistant, counselor, co-emergency response coordinator (ha!). For 20+ years I was defined as background support, never a leader. Meanwhile, my friends were called to be EQPs, scoutmasters, bishopric counselors, or bishops. One was even called into a stake presidency.

It's not that I aspired to be a leader. I honestly didn't want those callings. I didn't want the work that came with them. But it really felt like I was watching all of my friends move ahead in church life while I was being forgotten. Or that my abilities/thoughts/opinions weren't valuable enough to be needed on any meaningful level. That mindset, I've found, is now in play in my employment at work where I've learned to defer to the other guy rather than voice my opinion or thoughts on a subject. If the church has taught me anything, it's that my place is on the lower rung of the ladder.

Eventually, I started my nearly unnoticeable rebellion of wearing a grey shirt with dark grey buttons instead of white to church. My less-than-white shirt was meant to be an outward expression of my inward admission that I was not one of the noble and great ones. I was not leadership material, at least not in the eyes of the church, and really what other opinion matters in this world?

I also frequently went a week or more without shaving, because I'm a rebel.

I "æ" in my name is because I can never remember how I'm supposed to actually spell grey, or is it gray?

Ironically, 4 months after I decided it was all baloney, I was called into the bishopric and now EQP.

[Linked]

Eventually, I started my nearly unnoticeable rebellion of wearing a grey shirt with dark grey buttons instead of white to church. My less-than-white shirt was meant to be an outward expression of my inward admission that I was not one of the noble and great ones. I was not leadership material, at least not in the eyes of the church, and really what other opinion matters in this world?

Man, I'm sorry your church experience made you feel like you were less than your friends. That is awful. The church really sets us up to feel like failures, doesn't it?

I returned from my mission about a year before Star Wars Episode 3 came out. I had a girlfriend and was feeling bad about kissing her, and when I saw Anakin turning to the dark side and murdering Padawans I really related to it.

[jfro18]

Mine is Charlie from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia when he had just had enough of his friends screwing with his play.

I'm not sure it's directly related, although I often feel that way reading people who try to tell me that the facts and evidence don't matter yet refuse to actually look at or discuss them... so I suppose it's quite relatable in that way.

[græy]

I returned from my mission about a year before Star Wars Episode 3 came out. I had a girlfriend and was feeling bad about kissing her, and when I saw Anakin turning to the dark side and murdering Padawans I really related to it.

Isn't it crazy how we're almost directed to find something, anything to feel guilty or deficient about? If you're not repenting (and feeling sorry) then you're not doing life right.