Tuesday, May 28, 2019

How to be a Troll




I have been a troll for 7 years now. Not the famed internet troll who baits people into arguments, though I have also been guilty of that from time to time. No, I mean the kind of troll who lurks under bridges, watching the river flow in endless variation. Trolls are liminal creatures, after all, neither of one shore nor the other, but dwellers of the in-between space, like the bridge itself. And liminality is my purview.

Recently I have been contemplating the concept of ideological bridge building, the goal of the group Mormons Building Bridges. They seek to connect the LGBT community and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to show that at least some saints love and support queer people regardless of what rhetoric may come from Salt Lake City.

I applaud the work they do. However, I cannot help but notice that their Facebook group has become engulfed in the culture war between religion and queerness, just like everywhere else. Many advocate for the Church to allow same-sex marriage, even in temple sealings, and see any compromise as dehumanizing. While the majority in the group holds this sentiment, there are some who consistently hold the opposite view, that the Church can never change its policies because they are from an immutable God, and that the Church is already showing love towards LGBT people because as God’s church, it must always be doing the best.

Honestly neither of these viewpoints has anything to do with bridge building. The queer supporters 
are on one side of a great chasm, the doctrine supporters on the other. Neither one is trying to cross over to the other side (the telos of a bridge) but rather to hurl insults at each other (usually to the tune of bigot, unfeeling, abomination, etc.). They both want converts, not compromise. Or better still, for the other side to sink into the earth, forcing all their rivals to come to their side or perish. It is the other side which must cross the bridge, not our side.

As someone who sits under that bridge and hears the conversations of people who do cross, I can tell you that no one is convinced by logical arguments, insults, shame, or cultural pressures. Everyone who crosses does so out of love. Love for their children, love for a spouse, love for their God. No one bothers with a bridge until there is someone on the other side whom they want to be with. And crossing is never easy; it is terrifying. The ground under your feet is solid, dependable, familiar. But the bridge is suspended over rushing water, deadly, implacable, hungry. Ideologies are places of comforting certainty and answers, but bridges are places of questions and doubts. The toll for crossing is to lose the beliefs you hold dear.

So if you’re brave enough, come sit on the bridge with me.

The defenders of doctrine will hear the whispering doubts the moment they set foot on the bridge. What if queer people are in pain? What if my church is causing it? What if our doctrine is causing it? Maybe our prophets are wrong. But if they are wrong, how can they be prophets? What if they’re a sham? What if God is a sham? What is left in a world without God? What kind of monster have I been, tormenting queer people for so long, even the ones closest to me? How many of their deaths have I caused?

From the other side, the queer advocates will have similar thoughts. What if God does care about someone’s sex life? What if happiness in the eternities really is dependent on a man-woman relationship? What if all the hurt and pain of queer people is because they are not obeying God’s commandments? Have I been an advocate for sin? Have I disparaged God’s holy prophets only to condemn my brothers and sisters to hell along with my traitorous self?

Push through the doubt. Meet each other half way at the center of the bridge. See your uncertainty and pain and fear mirrored in the eyes of another. Find solace in shared discomfort.

Because at the center of the bridge is void energy. There is no right or wrong, no gospel or identity. All ideologies break down, the walls that protect and confine us dissolve, and the limitless possibilities of creation unfold before us. We are nowhere, between worlds, and for once we can communicate heart to heart without a need to convince or prove or win. The zero-sum game is over because there is nothing left to gain. Conversely, there is endless potential for new horizons. And the only certain thing in the swirling nothingness is the other human being standing right in front of you. If you want to survive, if you want to resist the pull of madness that demands you jump into the river below, you must embrace this other person, with all their flaws and biases and hatred and love them.

That’s when we can begin to forge new ideologies that include both worlds. We mingle the embers of understanding, the refined truths that survived the crossing of the bridge, and craft a place that thrives in unity. A place where our children can grow up in love and safety until they too are called to cross the bridge and renew the world again.

This is the power of bridge building. Take it from an experienced troll.

1 comment:

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