Living Our Beliefs: Exploring Faith & Religion in Daily Life

Forging a more Resilient Faith After Doubt – Aubrey Chaves

• Meli Solomon, the Talking with God Project • Season 4 • Episode 93

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Episode 93.   

Did you grow up in a highly observant home and religious community where surety of belief was the norm? Aubrey Chaves did, and much as she felt embraced by the family’s deep engagement within their Mormon congregation, or ward, when she encountered differing lifestyles that were loving and not harmful to anyone, the rightness she had always believed about the church fathers and doctrine shifted from a solid foundation to something brittle. In short, it prompted a crisis of faith. Over the many years since then, she’s spent a lot time learning and struggling with her faith, emerging with a stronger and more forgiving approach to living her beliefs. These days, her spiritual views are more complex and open, for which she is grateful. 


Highlights: 

  • Pioneer stock of Mormons on both sides of the family. 
  • Church provided an anchor and cadence for life.
  • Crisis of faith and realizing the church had flaws and ugly history.
  • The role of LGBTQ issues in faith reassessment.
  • James Fowler's Stages of Faith.
  • Missionary service as a transformative journey.
  • Orthodoxy v. Orthodoxy.
  • Faith redefined as love and trust.


Bio: 

As a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Aubrey Chaves finds deep meaning in faith, community, and the continual pursuit of spiritual growth. She serves on the executive board of the Faith Matters Foundation and co-hosts its weekly podcast with her husband, Tim. Together, they explore big questions and hope to foster expansive, thoughtful conversations that inspire curiosity, connection, and deeper engagement with faith. They live in Midway, Utah, where they are raising their four children under the beautiful snowy peaks of the Wasatch Mountains.


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Social Media links for Aubrey: 


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The Living Our Beliefs podcast is part of the Talking with God Project.

Aubrey Chaves transcript

Forging a More Resilient Faith After Doubt

 

 

Méli Solomon [00:00:05]:

Hello, and welcome to Living Our Beliefs, a home for open conversations with fellow Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Through personal stories and reflection, we explore how our religious traditions show up in daily life. I am your host, Maylee Solomon. So glad you could join us. This podcast is part of my Talking with God Project. To learn more, check out the link in the show notes. Did you grow up in a highly observant home and religious community where surety of belief was the norm? Aubrey Chavis did. And much as she felt embraced by the family's deep engagement with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormons, when she encountered differing lifestyles that were loving and not harmful to anyone, the rightness she had always believed about the church fathers and doctrine shifted from a solid foundation to something more brittle.

 

Méli Solomon [00:01:10]:

In short, she had a crisis of faith. Over the many years since then, she spent a lot of time learning and struggling with her faith, emerging with a stronger and more forgiving approach to living her beliefs. These days, her spiritual views are more complex and open for which she is grateful. And now let's turn to our conversation. Hello, Aubrey. Welcome to my Living Our Beliefs podcast. I am so pleased to have you on today.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:01:41]:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here with you.

 

Méli Solomon [00:01:45]:

I just mentioned in the introduction that you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, colloquially known as the Mormons. Were you raised in that and and how has that changed through your childhood into your adulthood?

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:02:03]:

Sure. So I come from pioneer stock is what we would say. Six generations of Mormon pioneers on all four sides of my grandparents' lines. Most of my ancestors, they immigrated here from somewhere in Europe and crossed the plains with handcarts and wagons and came to the Salt Lake Valley, and I'm still here. So Mormonism is is central to my family's story, our deep ancestor’s story, but also just my family story now. So I was raised in the church, and it was the anchor point of our life. It was it was sort of like the rhythm of our life. In a lot of ways, it was sort of the structure of just daily living.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:02:42]:

It was prayers together as a family in the morning. Sometimes on Goodyear's scripture study together in the morning. It was family home evenings, which was like a fun evening at home on Monday nights. It was youth groups on Wednesdays and Sundays. Our Sabbath were just full of sometimes church sometimes meetings depending on your responsibility in in the congregation. And then, of course, we had three-hour church growing up, which was an hour of, with the entire congregation where we would do, a sacrament. Well, it's called a sacrament meeting, but we would that that was the most important hour of the Sunday where we take bread and water and and renew covenants that we made when we're baptized. And then we had an hour of Sunday school and an hour with just the women, and and the men would separate and go just with men.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:03:26]:

So this is just like the cadence of my life growing up, and it was a glue in a lot of ways. It kept time, not just in a weekly way, but also just in a milestone way. There were years all through my life that were marked by special church rituals or events where the whole family would come together and you would celebrate some new milestone. So I feel like the church is really an identity in that way. Like, it was so it it was infusing everything that we did. That's, like, completely apart from the literal beliefs that went much deeper for me. That was a more personal way that the church was an anchor point in in my life, but it was also just, like, so much a part of our everyday and of our family life and our extended family life, and it was a way that we sort of just move through the world together. I would say in a personal way, it also was just my paradigm for seeing the world.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:04:15]:

It was a belief system that just made everything make sense. So it made sense of hard things. It made sense of the good things. It, it gave me a direction, when I needed help, and it gave me something to cling to when I needed direction, and it gave me this real community that felt like a village that raised me. Yeah. I would say the church was as much a part of my identity as my actual family growing up, and it still is, but I think that that relationship has evolved over time.

 

Méli Solomon [00:04:44]:

It's not my tradition, but what's so interesting about hearing this really litany of positive values that you have from six generations and in your own life, gained from being part of the Mormon church. There's nothing about that that I could criticize or find any fault with. It's also interesting the sense of community and grounded in the ritual of holidays, the weekly ritual, and the annual cycle, and and, of course, the life cycle as well, which you didn't mention, but I'll just toss that in. Yeah. Are clearly, resonant in in both of our faith traditions. So it's interesting to hear that so clearly.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:05:36]:

Yeah. I can definitely see that. For my family, we actually did really fit the mold in a comfortable way. And so I think that gave us a lot of privilege in the community that meant that there wasn't very much friction my whole growing up years. I think part of what has evolved as I've gotten older is that I started to see the ways that there's almost like a shadow side to community. When you have a very tight community, it can feel very exclusive to somebody who doesn't perfectly fit the mold. And so I think I started to experience more dissonance as I got older and recognized that even though I felt squarely in the middle, that not everybody was having that experience and that sometimes it can have this opposite effect on making someone feel like an outsider as opposed to this really insular, cozy, comforting thing that I had always experienced the church as in my life.

 

Méli Solomon [00:06:21]:

I like how you say it that when you fit comfortably in a cozy way into the core, into the center of that community and the faith practice, it's lovely. But if you don't, if you for whatever reason, and I wanna explore the different ways that one doesn't, then it really doesn't work. Then some problems come up quite quickly. You mentioned there, Aubrey, that you had some moments, at some point. So can you say more about that? Where did you start feeling and when did you start feeling a disjuncture?

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:07:02]:

Also, part of what kept me very comfortable in this community was that I had a story of our history that felt really clean and simple and faith promoting. And so when I, as a young adult, started learning more about the history of our own people, I felt disturbed because the story wasn't as clean and clear as I always thought it was. And and it turned out that that was part of what gave me so many of my beliefs. There's this this feeling and, like, this literal certainty about so many particulars in our history, but also in the doctrine. And so and, you know, I grew up in the nineties when the Internet was just becoming something accessible and we were learning how to use it. And so I really literally just didn't have very much access to the real history. I'm not sure that it was something that was hidden. It wasn't really on my radar and there it would have been difficult to go find out more than what was already offered.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:07:59]:

So I think just in this really natural way, I just started learning more about our history and finding out that there were ugly parts of the history and there were stories that made me feel super uncomfortable. I think that was the beginning of really having to ask myself hard questions. Like, what happens if a leader is fallible? And what happens if they make decisions that I feel are morally reprehensible? Like, does that mean that the fruit of this community in my life right now is sour? And those were scary questions because I had never asked them before. And it was much easier to just think the leaders all the way back had the best of intentions. They were always inspired by God. And then this thing tumbled forward, and this is what my family has. And so it's beautiful and clean, and it was this whole new paradigm. And I it was really challenging to start assimilating what is like all history.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:08:48]:

It it's raw and it's messy, and there are a lot of characters and a lot of good intentions gone wrong. And, also, you never really know for sure what actually happened. There will always be questions, and I think that started to seem clear that no matter how much I read or how much I dug, there was always gonna be some amount of uncertainty about our own story. And so it I had to start rethinking my own beliefs and deciding if the way that the church functions in my life right now is directly connected to these stories six generations ago? And if it is, you know, what does that require of me on a Sunday? Like, does it mean I have to disavow these things that I love? And so that was a real wrestle. And I think that the the heaviest part of that wrestle is that once you lose that certainty, then anywhere that you see friction in the current church feels even more problematic. So, for example, for me, LGBTQ issues felt really important. But because I had this foundation that felt so solid, I felt so sure that the church was always in perfect alignment with God, that it kind of gave me this solidity around those issues, which felt like, okay, I don't understand them, but I know that the church must be in alignment here, so I don't even really have to examine it any further. I don't really understand it, but this is what God says about these issues.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:10:09]:

That had been my paradigm, you know, as a child. And so I think once that foundation got a little bit unsteady, everything fell apart. And all of a sudden, I felt like it was mine to do to figure out what I really believe about these issues that are causing active pain for people. And so it felt earth shattering. I felt like the whole house just came crumbling down, and I was just, like, sitting in this rubble. I felt so disoriented. Like, I had no anchor point in my life. Like, I really genuinely didn't know what I believed.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:10:40]:

It felt like starting over. That was fifteen years ago, and I feel like I'm that's the journey that I'm still on. The way I see the journey now is not so much like something went wrong and I lost my faith and there was this deficiency. It felt like there was this real stepping into something new. It felt like an invitation to a more mature faith that was a lot more complicated and a lot more nuanced and where a lot more love is required. I feel like it's been a really bumpy road with a lot of good growth, and I've sort of redefined what I want the church to be in my life. Whereas before, I considered it this fountain of wisdom. It was, like, where I went for all the answers.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:11:20]:

I I felt like it was the thing between me and God that would help me connect to God. And now I think I that my relationship with God feels a little bit more direct. I feel like the church adds so much to my life, but that it isn't like the middle man so much. And so there are things that I love about the church that I totally claim as my own that feel like really good fruit, and there are things that taste sour that I feel like I have permission now to just completely let go of. And I think being in a community where the tension like that just comes and goes and comes and goes, and where you're sitting on a Sunday next to somebody who sees it a completely different way, that has been the most growth inducing, I think, of my life because it's hard to be in relationship with people that you totally disagree with. And the church has functioned as this sort of container for keeping us all together even though we see it differently. And so I think that's one of the gifts of this religion and of this community and of of worshiping with my neighbors who don't see it the same way. The metaphor that we use a lot on our own podcast is like a a rock tumbler.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:12:23]:

The church kind of holds you together and you're just like tumbling along and sanding your edges, and it's really painful sometimes, but also you're in genuine relationship with people and experiencing a real Christ like love for people who you might not otherwise choose to be in relationship with. So all this tension that seemed like everything had gone wrong, my life was a disaster, all of that has felt now looking back, and and the way I experience it now is just, like, such good good tension, like, the tension that leads to growth.

 

Méli Solomon [00:12:53]:

It's really interesting to me that the LGBTQ issue was the thing that opened the door from surety to uncertainty and complexity. What happened that that raised that issue?

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:13:07]:

I think it was the my paradigm growing up is that this was a choice that people were making and that it it was a sin. And so I think I realized that it was the one sin, air quote sin, that if you took it to the end of that extreme, it didn't lead to any unhappiness. For example, if someone is lying and they're doing it more and more and more, it's destructive in their life. Right? Anything else I could think of that I genuinely believed was sinful, it eventually led to some deep unhappiness for themselves and for the people in their life. And I think LGBTQ issues started to feel really problematic because that didn't seem to be the case. Like, I knew people who were in same sex relationships who were just living quiet, beautiful lives, and I could see that they were experiencing all of the things that I experienced in my own marriage. They've had genuine joy and connection and community and all of these things that I valued. It seemed like their partnership in the same way that any marriage could was leading to a beautiful rich life.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:14:09]:

And so it started to disturb me that I had been really dismissive about this concept as a sin, and I really just couldn't justify it anymore. And so that felt like pain that I was complicit in causing by just agreeing to the church's position, which was that these relationships are just not allowed. And the church was not saying that being gay was wrong. They were saying that the lifestyle and the choices are wrong. And I just couldn't I just couldn't countenance that anymore. Like, it felt like an affront to my own conscience. I remember realizing that I would rather if there was some moment of judgment after this life, I would rather face God and say, you know, I guess I just misunderstood love. I felt in my heart that this was good, And I would rather be wrong and face God saying, I was just trying to listen to your voice than the other way around.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:14:58]:

Like, yeah, it felt really wrong that this is what we were asking of this community, but the leadership of our church said it was wrong, so I just ignored it. It just felt wrong to just keep ignoring what felt so clear in my own heart. So that felt like an urgent problem right away.

 

Méli Solomon [00:15:15]:

Yeah. And what stands out for me, Aubrey, is that you got to that point because you interacted enough with a gay couple or several who how however much that you were actually seeing that they were living joy filled, positive lives. I think that's key, and it's it's an aspect of Mormonism that I have always struggled with. I really value this opportunity to talk about openness to others and access to others. How much is one interacting with people who are different, whether they're different in terms of their sexual orientation or their religious faith or their culture or their, you know, etcetera etcetera. Mhmm. And one of the things that I have understood about the Mormon church is that it's quite a closed community that I, for instance, as a Jew, could not go into a temple. 

 

Aubrey Chaves 

Mhmm.

 

Méli Solomon [00:16:18]:

You know? I do interfaith work. I talk with people across differences, and I find that sort of thing disturbing, to be honest. Yeah. It's like I'm trying to understand, and there is a wall that I am not allowed to come to a service and learn how that is. I can go to all kinds of other churches. I can go to mosques. Yeah. So can you help me understand about the relative openness? How much interaction with people who are not in the fold is encouraged, is supported? Is it okay? Did you have to kind of do it on the sly? Was it accidental? Like, tell me about that.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:17:00]:

Okay. Thank you for just asking the real question. I think this is a really important topic. I'm trying to remember the survey about major religions in The United States where people rated how positively they saw all these different religions. And the most interesting thing I thought is that Mormons, they were the least liked, but they liked the most. And I think that is maybe part of, like, what we're talking about. I think part of the reason I would argue that there is some openness is that Mormons are meant to serve a two year mission. They go out into the world, they pay their own way, and they don't know where they're going.

 

 

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:17:37]:

They just they're assigned to serve somewhere, and they go there for two years, and they're knocking on doors and serving and getting to know people. And so I think that they very often come home with a little taste of whatever that culture had to offer, and I think that that does a lot of work in just opening minds and creating a genuine love for a culture that is totally different than our own. I think that's something I'm proud of that in that way, I think there is a lot of openness. The other thing that I really appreciate about Mormon culture is that there has always been this push for education. Where I think a lot of tight communities can get insular on purpose, where there's sort of this contraction around education and learning and from the very earliest days that has not been the culture of Mormonism. Like, getting education has always been seen as something very valuable, not threatening, but, like, part of your mission in the world and a way to expand on the gifts that God has given you. I think that creates, of course, a lot of openness. I wanna address the temple specifically.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:18:37]:

We have regular Sunday chapel church where everybody is welcome. That's where you you would meet in a meeting house. There's a chapel there with altars for the sacrament. There's classrooms surrounding the chapel. Very often, there's a basketball court behind the chapel where the youth will meet for games. That's always open to anyone, to the community, to every member of the church. There are never any rules about who is allowed. In fact, the hope is that we're always seeing visitors and community members in the chapel with us on a Sunday for worship.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:19:08]:

The temple is where we are performing specific ordinances for the dead. So this and also for yourself. So this is where baptisms for the dead are happening. This is where marriages, ceilings are happening. This is a place where they think there is a lot of tension because the bar is so high even for our own members. I wouldn't dare guess the percentage of members of each ward congregation who have access to the temple, but it is certainly not even close to a %. This is something that where access is limited even for our own membership, which is really painful. Like this is a pain point that is hard for me actually, to get into the temple, you have a sit down interview with your local authority, you're going to answer several questions about your own beliefs, about your lifestyle.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:19:56]:

And unless you're answering all of those questions with the right answers, you know, keeping the word of wisdom, paying a full tiding, do you believe that the prophet has been called of God? Very personal questions. If the answer to those questions is correct, then you get access to the temple. So even if your own children were being married, like, there is no flexibility there. It's either you have a temple recommend, which is the paper you need to get into the temple, or you don't. No matter what's happening in the temple, without that, you can't get in. So that is the most exclusive thing that happens in our community. It's also not a day to day thing that's happening, but, yeah, it's as about as limited as I can imagine. And that's a pain point for a lot of people inside the community, let alone someone from another faith.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:20:40]:

It's the most sacred thing in Mormonism. So

 

 

Méli Solomon [00:20:44]:

you talk about the temple being this quite exclusive space even within Mormon Yeah. Followers. Before that, you said that regular Sunday services are open to all. Do you call that space something else?

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:21:01]:

It so if you could just get on Google Maps and you search LDS temple, those are specific buildings that are exclusive to those ordinances that are happening in that building. Nothing else happens in the temple. An LDS meeting house is where we would have a chapel where the whole ward meets together and where we have classrooms. Two totally separate buildings. And a meeting house is just doors unlocked, and anybody can go inside all the time.

 

Méli Solomon [00:21:25]:

Okay. Thanks. That's helpful to get the language clear. I'm curious now about where there are meeting houses around here that I could go. Yeah. I wanna go back though to the point before that about openness to others and those avenues. So you mentioned the mission. 

 

Aubrey Chaves 

Mhmm.

 

Méli Solomon [00:21:46]:

It was really interesting what you said about the people who go on missions, going to foreign countries, and being open to those other cultures and that kind of opens the mind. And and I do need to push back on that respectfully. I know from my own experience the great value of living abroad or even just traveling for a while abroad. If you really go with that mind of, I'm going to go to this other place that is different from my home, and I'm going to just go with an open mind and heart, and I am going to experience what it's like there. But the fact is is that they're on a mission. They are on a mission to proselytize. That is not going to explore. That is going to spread the word.

 

Méli Solomon [00:22:38]:

I have met Mormons in other countries on their mission, And I have to say, Aubrey, and I say this with the deepest respect, there was zero curiosity about me. Zero. Even when I said, I study different religions. I'm Jewish. I'm not interested in in becoming Mormon. I'm not interested in becoming anything else. But I am interested in talking about religion. I am interested in understanding you, and I would hope you'd be interested in understanding how Judaism is different from your faith and zero.

 

Méli Solomon [00:23:14]:

Absolutely zero. It was all just push push push. I have to say I'm a little surprised to hear that apparently people come back from missions having had some kind of open experience and being more open to the world because that is so not my experience.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:23:35]:

Yeah. I think this is a really good point. Have you ever talked about Fowler's stages of faith on your podcast before? James Fowler, he wrote a book called stages of faith in in the eighties, and and this has been really valuable for me in this whole experience. He talks about how very often in your in your teen years, you're in what he calls a stage three faith, which is where the world is very black and white. Anything that's different from you feels a little threatening. Like, anything that challenges your paradigm, you kind of perceive as a threat. So you often feel defensive. And then for a lot of people, and not everyone, some people live in their whole life in the stage three faith where the world just works for them, especially if they they fit comfortably in the center of their community.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:24:17]:

But some people move into this new stage, which he says often happens when they have a leaving home experience. And it's where all of a sudden, all of your paradigms get challenged and and your face sort of breaks apart. And for a lot of people, it's this is really difficult, and you feel anger and sadness, and you feel really disoriented in the world. And then, hopefully, you move through this stage into something that he calls, stage five, which feels a lot more like harmony where you're integrating all of the previous stages and you have this real appreciation for people who see the world differently, and you don't feel threatened by them. It's just like nourishment. So I bring that up because I think that it's normal for an 18 year old to be in that stage three place where the world is black and white. They know all of the answers and have all the wisdom to offer. And just developmentally, that's a normal place to be at 18.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:25:08]:

And so I think for a lot of missionaries, that's what's happening and that it's a healthy place to be in your life where you're just like, the world is very simple and you have everything to offer. I think it would be amazing if the experience of a mission was to go out and learn. Setting that aside, don't you think even if you don't you think even if you were in that stage that the best thing that you could do would be to have this imperative to go out and serve? I mean, I would like to tweak the understanding. Like, I would like permissions to be about, like, let's learn and let's genuinely just serve and not try to tell people that they want this. But I still feel like it's a net positive if we're just talking about the community. If we're just talking about Mormonism, I think leaving home for two years and being totally inundated with a different culture, even if you're doing it kicking and screaming, even if you genuinely believe that you're the only one in this whole country who knows the way, which is ridiculous. But I I think even still, I would argue that that's a healthy stretching that's happening. And I think a lot of missionaries come home with some questions. Like, I think they're seeing valuable ways that other people are worshiping even if they're not trying to. And for sure that's not the case for everybody.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:26:12]:

Probably for some it does the opposite and they come home even more entrenched in their own way of seeing the world. But But I think that this system of having to go out and gift two years to your community out in the world, I would still argue that that's a net positive as far as openness in the community because you're just getting two years of exposure, and it's very easy to not have that.

 

Méli Solomon [00:26:33]:

Absolutely. And and I think you've made a good, clarifying point there, Aubrey. But, again, I go to the intention. There's a question of intention, and there's a question of structure and leadership. Right? There are lots of ways of going out into the world. Whether that's the next state over or another country, there are ranges of difference of experience. Right? As an American, it can be going to Canada, and it can be going to China. Right? These are wildly different degrees of difference and challenge.

 

 

 

Méli Solomon [00:27:13]:

That, I think, is a critical thing. It's obviously not for you and I here on this podcast to sort out, but I think it's really important. You know? Some kids do a gap year between high school and college. Right? So there are lots of ways of accomplishing that. Uh-huh. None of which need to involve proselytizing your religion. Right? So so that's the point. In any event Yep.

 

Méli Solomon [00:27:38]:

We could go on on that topic, but I'd like to shift a little.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:27:42]:

Sorry.

 

Méli Solomon [00:27:42]:

We've spoken in one word or another about the certainty of your faith. A related word is rigidity. Rigidity of the orthodoxy, rigidity of the beliefs and practice. Yeah. I understand that for you when you were young, pre Internet days, that you had this, you know, quite pure, beautiful, quite angelic sense of the history of the Mormon church and the Mormon community, and that kinda got blown up there. It seems to me that there are risks and perhaps rewards to the rigidity and clarity. So I wanted to ask you about that because you've grown up in a kind of rigid religious structure that is completely foreign to me. So wanna hear really honestly your story, and then I wanna move on something else.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:28:40]:

Yeah. Yeah. This is something that really fascinates me about your community because I think that a lot of what keeps us feeling close as a community is this idea of very specific beliefs. And so I think what that means is that when you start questioning those beliefs, you instantly start feeling like an outsider. Even before anybody else says that you are, nobody has to say it. If you in your own heart are starting to wonder if you believe the same as the rest of your ward, which is what we call our congregations, then you start feeling like a fraud. Like you're if anybody knew what you really thought, then you wouldn't belong. I think what's painful for people in our community when they're experiencing a crisis of faith is that they also have this sense of not belonging.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:29:24]:

And this is work that Brian McLaren has written a lot about that has been really influential for me. He wrote a book called Faith After Doubt. The way he described it really resonated with me, and he said, you know, before you've experienced doubt, you'll express your faith as a list of specific beliefs. And after you've experienced doubt, you express faith as love. And I feel like that's what this crucible of a decade or so taught me that I just couldn't find answers and it turned out that I don't think that's the point. And I love what Paul Tillich says about faith and doubt. He says that the opposite of faith is not doubt, it is certainty. There was really this reorientation that was required when I started having questions.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:30:08]:

And I think what I learned was that questions were actually not a problem. It was in fact, the questions were the thing that was so good for my soul, and it really required me to face the things that I felt the most afraid of. And it turns out that that rigidity was not security. It was the nice. Like, it was actually very scary because I could be so easily disturbed. And I think as I've sort of reoriented around a faith that is open to questions and open to just totally leaning in to to the thing I'm afraid of, it means that I can experience what I think the Bible was trying to teach about a peace that passeth all understanding. Like, it doesn't feel so logical anymore, but it's still there. And if you can have peace in the uncertainty, then it it's much harder to feel disturbed.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:30:50]:

I'm glad that that got sorted out for you, and it's interesting this belief that is truly about love. Love of of what? I think it's that your faith expresses itself as love. Whereas I think when I thought that faith should look like something I can literally write down and tell you, like, here are the specific things that I believe or that I know. If you would ask me about faith, that's how I would have expressed it. After it got murkier and I had really big questions and things I didn't feel like I could explain, what emerged is that what I value is this feeling of trust in a higher power. It feels more relational. It feels way too deep and too big to be pinned down in a list of specific things, but it feels like a general orientation of trust. I think the way it shows up in my actual life is that I feel more inclined to gift people genuine love, like respect that feels and sounds and to me and hopefully to them like love.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:31:52]:

It feels like I have no agenda for you. I trust your own path. And I genuinely feel a sense of love for a stranger. That's what he feels like the ultimate expression of faith now, not this, like, certitude where I can tell you all the things that I believe about the world and about God.

 

Méli Solomon [00:32:11]:

You're describing a distinction between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Yes. Correct belief versus correct action.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:32:19]:

I think that's one way to put it. Yeah. Let me think about that.

 

Méli Solomon [00:32:22]:

Is it about correct practice?

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:32:25]:

I think that's closer. I when I think of orthopractic, I think I can make a list of the things I think I should do. The way I would describe the change for me is more just like the anchor shifted, and I I think I was anchored to the things I thought I should do. Like, my beliefs were all about this long, long list of things I thought I needed to do to be good. And and I think now it just feels more like a trusting orientation in the world. Like, I believe that our life is good. I believe that everybody has their own access to what's good for them. And and I feel like my soul's highest aspiration is to just be in alignment with that love.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:33:04]:

And these very specifics about who God is or what happens after we die, those just feel like they just don't matter the way they used to. Is there a limit to this life is good and people are beautiful? Certainly. Like, I think there are still messy things, but I feel like that orientation has been more productive of good fruit than this idea that I have the recipe for salvation that needs to be delivered to my community and that I need to live perfectly. I think that was becoming an obstacle in my connection with God and with the people around me. So I think that with an orientation of love, I still feel called to do good work and to, you know, seek out people who are suffering and to make big changes and do hard things and be brave, but it's coming from this place of love, not this place of fear. So you are now when

 

Méli Solomon [00:34:00]:

you think about the world, when you go out into the world, your default is you approach people with love and you assume that they are good at heart and or they, what, have what they need? You said something about everybody has an access. I'm not quite sure to what.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:34:25]:

Access to their own connection to God Or to their whatever they believe in, to their highest self. I don't feel the pressure that I think my specific beliefs gave me before that I need to be the one to illuminate that for anyone. Yeah. I think I genuinely believe that people are good at heart and that they're wounded, and that the best I can do here is try to heal my own wounds and be a healer in my sphere of influence. I think the general arc of faith crisis for me, it was just this this relief that, like, nothing has gone wrong and that each of us are on our own path and that it has something to do with a deep love. The more technical I get about my purpose in the world, the more misaligned I feel.

 

Méli Solomon [00:35:10]:

Yeah. I can see how that might be the case. I wanna highlight something you just said, Aubrey, because I think this is very helpful. And to my Jewish ears, it runs counter to what you as a Christian are supposed to do. I think you were saying that you no longer see that you need to be the one to help someone connect to God, which is basically you don't need to proselytize. Did I hear you correctly?

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:35:40]:

Yeah. That's completely fair. And that is what I mean. But I also don't mean that I, in any way, feel like I should check out. I think we each operate in our own sphere of influence, and that we'll be able to genuinely love and connect and help the people around us. I just think that it was so specific. It was like a recipe. Like, I I remember the anxiousness I would feel getting on a plane as a young adult because it felt like there was this pressure.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:36:03]:

Like, I gotta find a way to have a conversation with the person next to me, and that has completely dissipated. I feel like this religion, this church, has been so nourishing for my soul. It's the incubator for me to grow. And I completely believe that other people are growing in other ways, in other incubators, and that they have truths and wisdom to offer to me. I feel no anxiety about whether we're doing that in the same container. And I think that it's a gift to be able to have interactions like this, like with you. Like, both things can be completely true and that your community can be nourishing to you and I can learn from it and vice versa, but there's no pressure around you learning the way I have learned.

 

Méli Solomon [00:36:46]:

Like, it can be good for me, and it cannot be yours and vice versa. Yeah. I I think this is a a really valuable message, and, again, it completely runs counter to everything I have understood about Mormonism and about most Christian denominations. Alright. Well, on that note, thank you so much, Aubrey, for coming on my Living Our Beliefs podcast. I really appreciate it so much.

 

Aubrey Chaves [00:37:15]:

Yeah. Thank you so much.

 

Méli Solomon [00:37:19]:

Thank you for listening. This podcast is an outgrowth of my Talking with God Project. If you'd like to learn more about that project, a link to the website is in the show notes. Thanks so much for tuning in. Till next time. Bye bye.